The Banker's Dilemma: She promised him Paris in the spring

by Roman Klee

  Later, a security guard, dressed like a U.S. navy seal, led Nathan away. He was now the condemned man, but unlike convicts of the past, Nathan was to spend one night in a luxurious cabin on the lower deck.

  A glass sided elevator took him down to the guest quarters. The Figa d’Oro had ten suites, each one with its own specially crafted Carrara marble and onyx bathroom.

  As Nathan walked along the corridor, he recalled Thom’s chilling descriptions of what happened to people who proved to be disappointments. How would Orofino punish him?

  Were they already warming up the cattle prong?

  It was best not to dwell on things that had not yet happened. This could all end well. Then he felt his legs getting heavier. It was as if he was wading through quick sand, sinking deeper and deeper with every movement.

  He saw a light coming from behind an open door, surely he could make it, not much further to go. And then a blow to the back of the head stopped him in his tracks.

  He stood perfectly still for no more than a split second, before collapsing on the custom-designed carpet.

  Δ = T +5.9

  Then the shouting began. And men dressed in black with night-vision goggles were banging on every door, “Open up, open up! Open up NOW!”

  Clutching razor sharp axes they never hesitated to use whenever they met resistance, they assembled in strike formation outside Nathan’s cabin.

  “We’re coming in to get you, if you don’t open up. Open up!”

  There was no answer.

  The blows rained down on Nathan’s door. The wood began to splinter, but it was so thick, they needed several attempts before it gave way and the men in black stormed in.

  Nathan lay motionless on the emperor-size bed.

  They carried his body up to the master suite on the main deck. A makeshift medical center had been set up to assist anyone injured in the storming of the Figa d’Oro.

  Nathan felt like he had been dragged down to the bottom of the ocean, where they should have left him to die. Perhaps a guardian angel took pity on him, and he survived.

  He had lost all sense of time.

  He recalled a medic telling him he had been pumped full of Propofol, though they did not know how big the dose had been. But it was more than enough to sedate him for at least a couple of days.

  When they finally woke Nathan, his first question was, “Where’s Orofino?”

  “We can’t tell you that sir, you must come with us.”

  “No, I must … I need to know …”

  Nathan was finding it harder than usual to talk, he felt as if his mouth had been filled with sand. “You’ve been out a while. Now don’t talk.”

  Nathan wanted to argue, he wanted to tell these guys what he thought of them. He wanted to know where they were taking him. What did they intend doing to him? When would they let him go?

  He lined up all the questions. And then he clean forgot them again, as if they did not really matter any more.

  Maybe Antonio had been right all along. Everyone had to answer to somebody sooner or later.

  And in Orofino’s case it was obviously sooner than he was expecting.

  Skipping bail might have looked like a smart move. Preferring to spend time on his three-hundred-foot yacht instead of a cold hard jail cell, was an easy enough choice to make. But not all the easiest choices paid off.

  It seemed entirely possible Orofino was involved in some kind of financial deal that had backfired. And maybe the arm of the U.S. justice system was much longer than he imagined.

  The Waterford Crystal ball had dropped. Did they still do that, what did the occupants of City Hall have to say? Killjoys one and all, they had probably banned the tradition by now on health and safety grounds.

  It was a New Year and a New Day. Remember—a time for hope and renewal.

  But did anything really change for the better? There was a rutting chimpanzee on the loose in one of New York’s top hotels, posing as the chairman of some important international financial organization.

  And if the chimps were not acting up in hotels, then they were surely performing their usual antics on the trading floors across New York City and beyond.

  Remember—a time for hope and renewal.

  Nathan was in two minds. What was the best way to thank Jade and Budd Wright for their hospitality?

  Should he attach a thank you note with the email, or maybe make a phone call. Better still, once they gave him the all clear, should he turn up unannounced in person?

  He had time to think it over. There was no need to decide in that moment. And as he was considering his options, he heard a knock on the door and looked up.

  He thought he saw Carla, standing in the cabin doorway, holding a bunch of flowers. She had remembered him and it was just like he imagined it would be.

  Only he was mistaken—he saw a nurse holding out a bedpan and asking him if he had made his menu selections for lunch.

  Nathan wanted to share his sense of relief with someone. He had escaped from the twisted clutches of Antonio Orofino; he was free, free at last.

  Or was he?

  There was still one unanswered question.

  Where was that son-of-a-bitch Orofino?

  Δ = T +5.9.8

  The morning news carried a story Nathan thought he would never ever read:

  At daybreak, members of the crew from the Figa d’Oro, discovered the dead body of a man floating in the sea, thirty miles south of the Isla de Ballenas.

  According to a spokesman for the St. Mary’s Hospital, medical teams are currently unable to identify the deceased. He is believed to have fallen over the side of the vessel late at night or early morning.

  A member of the crew, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the yacht’s owner had been hosting an all night party to celebrate his sixty-eighth birthday.

  He described the occasion as convivial, with a lot of singing and dancing. During the evening, the owner was joined by a large number of much younger female guests.

  The death is being treated as a tragic accident. The Glynn County Coroner’s office was waiting for the results of an autopsy and DNA analysis.

  The three-hundred-foot Figa d’Oro, is owned by Park Avenue hedge fund manager, Antonio Orofino. It can accommodate up to twenty guests in ten cabins and has a crew of thirty.

  The Figa d’Oro is available for charter from one million dollars a week, plus expenses.

  Whatever the report said, a part of Nathan knew it was no accident. He tried calling Thom’s cell phone, but didn’t even get a ring tone. When he asked around, no one admitted seeing the guy.

  For some reason, the cops had clearly lost their sense of smell. Nathan would have expected them to take samples and begin a full-scale narcotics investigation.

  Then Nathan recalled Antonio Orofino’s comments, in what would turn out to be their final talk together. They had just completed the walk, finishing on the yacht’s sundeck. It was a routine Orofino liked to perform every night, before retiring to his master cabin.

  Casually, as if it didn’t amount to a big deal, he told Nathan that during his stay in hospital, he ordered the hacking of Nathan’s text and voicemail accounts, removing all messages left by his family.

  And by way of explanation, Antonio added, “You disappointed everyone Nathan. Did you learn your lesson? Never use your fingers to short-circuit the Brothers’ network!”

  That was one to stick up on the wall, and place alongside all those other self-motivational slogans.

  Finally he added, “One day they’ll come for me. But you know what they say: I’ll be gone … you’ll be gone!”

  Later, Nathan learned that the body found floating in the sea, belonged to a young man aged just twenty-two. He had served on the Figa d’Oro as a cabin steward.

  He was named as Joe Aaronberg.
r />   Although Nathan knew him as Julius.

  Δ = T ∞

  Nathan’s final day of revelations began with an early morning phone call. Bruce Glickman, a senior lawyer at the firm Concoran & Block, told him that Carla Wright was about to announce her divorce from Dirk Bruening.

  Nathan was shocked. He never expected the couple to end their marriage for good, even if he had detected the kinds of tensions that were pretty normal in any relationship.

  Carla’s lawyer stressed his remarks were still only allegations, nothing was proven, but Dirk had fallen into bad company. A series of risky and loss making real estate ventures left him with huge debts. And he owed the money to some seriously unpleasant people.

  Unfortunately, he became careless, forgetting to do due diligence when selecting his business partners. The FBI believed that Dirk was guilty of willful blindness.

  In return for looking the other way, he allowed a Mexican drugs cartel to use Anastasia for carrying a large consignment of cocaine across the Atlantic.

  Then the lawyer really dropped the bomb-shell.

  Nathan had been named in the divorce papers. This came as a shock on so many levels.

  And suddenly everything became clear. Carla had played him. She used him to make her divorce easier, just like a rich kid would. It wasn’t only clients of financial advisors who got screwed. The clients screwed their advisors too.

  Then Glickman explained the reason for including Nathan in the divorce petition. Although it sounded like a big deal, in reality it wasn’t really.

  He was certainly not about to have to pay all the lawyers’ fees, which came as a mighty big relief.

  No, the reason was the Wright family wanted the divorce to go ahead as discreetly as possible, without drawing attention to Dirk Bruening’s imprudent business associations.

  After the call, Nathan felt a whole lot better. He was of course sorry about how things had turned out for the couple, but now he understood he was not to blame. Sometimes it really was best to keep the media in the dark about certain things.

  Then Nathan settled down to read his weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal.

  There was no reason in particular, but the first article that caught his eye was about Alva and Phil Grenelund. They had traveled to Italy to supervise the restoration of a Venetian palazzo, recently purchased in a private sale. By all accounts, not only had they paid over the odds, but the project was fast turning into a disaster.

  Phil had fallen gravely ill. Maybe it was a case of the food getting its revenge, because he came down with e-coli poisoning after eating steak tartar in a Venetian restaurant. The attack was so serious he had to be hospitalized. No one could say for sure whether he would make a full recovery.

  His wife had faired little better. Alva quickly alienated the local artisans in a way only she knew how. Her plans to cover the façade of the Palazzo Corner–Dondolo in gold leaf and change its name to the Palazzo Alva–Dondolo, did not meet with universal approval.

  In fact, a local preservation society started a campaign to raise money, so they could buy back the building and hand it over to the people of Venice.

  Then Alva suffered the misfortune of timing her stay during a record breaking high water.

  Not only did the flooding completely destroy the preliminary repair work, but Alva caught a virulent strain of Weil’s disease (she had spent many hours supervising the clearing out of the palazzo’s canal level storerooms).

  The prognosis was not good.

  Nathan’s day of revelations was surely complete. But there was just one more thing. On his return from the local Dim Sum takeaway, he retrieved a letter from his mailbox and noticed, not for the first time, that it carried a postmark from the state of Georgia.

  It had started off as a joke, with Carla suggesting he might as well have a go. And so for ten dollars, Nathan bought a Christmas lottery ticket in aid of the Bessemer Hospice. First prize was lunch with her dad at Smollensky’s steak house, opposite the New York Stock Exchange.

  It barely seemed possible, but the letter from the Isla de Ballenas confirmed that Nathan had won a lunch date with Budd.

  What a lucky return—from a purely random act!

  Ambitious young fund managers were known to shell out millions of dollars to dine with several famous billionaire investors, who once a year during the holiday season, sold their time to charity.

  Where would Nathan’s lunch meeting lead? He had no idea, but he was hoping to make the most of his rare opportunity—a bunch of hot stock picks would be welcome.

  Nathan felt very nervous. He was finally about to meet the man who had created one of America’s biggest corporations; Brenton Davenport.

  Nathan arrived at Smollensky’s early and had already consumed a Martini to steady himself. What would they talk about? There was absolutely nothing that a guy like Budd Wright could learn from someone like Nathan.

  He scanned the bar, trying to see if Wright was already there. But he couldn’t spot anyone in the room who looked like the multi-billionaire.

  And then Nathan turned and saw Carla’s smiling face.

  “Mr. X sends his apologies. Sorry, Dad couldn’t make it.”

  Nathan tried not to look disappointed. So he wasn’t having lunch with Budd after all, but he got Jade’s second eldest daughter instead. It was not so bad a trade.

  And then he realized what Carla just said.

  She wanted to explain some more. Nathan probably did not fully understand the business about her divorce. She insisted in going into more detail.

  Over a couple of medium rare T-bone steaks and side orders of hash browns, they talked about the year that had just passed and their plans for the future. Carla promised Nathan Paris in the spring and the best seats for the men’s final at Roland Garros.

  Naturally he said yes, especially as he could visit Loretta, who by then would be studying at the Sorbonne. On the return trip to the States, they could stop over in London and see Steven at the LSE.

  “So can you tell me now?”

  “Tell you what Nathan?”

  “You know … was it you all along?”

  Carla didn’t reply, because she had no idea what Nathan was talking about.

  “Did you add my name to Jade’s Christmas letter list?”

  Carla laughed, but denied all knowledge. Her lips were sealed.

  So everything was agreed. Nathan had a lot of new things to look forward to.

  On leaving Smollensky’s, they noticed a large group of protesters gathered in Zuccotti Park. A guy holding a bullhorn, proclaimed everyone had a choice—but did they have the courage to join in?

  As the couple watched from a distance, one person in particular stood out among the crowd—Jimmy.

  Budd’s son was standing near the front, holding up a homemade banner, which read: Tax the Rich!

  Nathan smiled and looked at Carla.

  He really had no idea what he was doing or where he was heading. But he no longer cared. He felt reinvigorated, with a new sense of hope.

  And in that moment, it was all he wanted, all he needed.

  Author’s Note

  What is a roman à clef? The term comes from French, meaning literally, a novel with a key (or to be more precise, a novel with keys if the full French spelling is used—roman à clefs).

  The first person credited with using this format, was the seventeenth century salon hostess, Madeleine de Scudéry, a society lady, who wrote seriously long novels. One of her books Artamène, contains over two million words and runs into ten volumes, making it one of the longest ever written! Artamène is also widely considered to be the first example of a roman à clef.

  The essential feature of this kind of novel, is the overlaying of real life experiences and events with a fictional guise. The characters represent real people, whose identities hav
e been concealed. And the author is often anonymous.

  It may seem odd to be using a seventeenth century literary device in a modern novel. But when placed in its historical context, it’s a surprisingly appropriate choice.

  A few hundred years ago, when independent thought and criticism of the ruling elite by an author could be life threatening, writing a book that disguised the names of well-known figures of the day, was one way to voice a contrary opinion—while limiting the chance of reprisals by the state.

  De Scudéry laced her historical romances with cutting satire and long, mannered dialogues, providing glimpses into the lives of the aristocrats who attended the court of Louis XIV.

  Salons formed an important part of French social life in the seventeenth-century. They were small, private gatherings of people, which provided entertainment and used the art of conversation to help refine the taste and increase the knowledge of all those present.

  Although rules of etiquette were laid down for taking part in salon discussions, inevitably people strayed into the areas of politics and religion—both were dangerous subjects if your own views deviated from the orthodox.

  The roman à clef therefore, appealed to members of certain salons, where in an inversion of social roles for the age, it was women who controlled the conversation and set the salons’ agenda. Over time, small privileged groups or coteries emerged, who tended to concern themselves with secret political and literary activities. In one sense, salon society was an early form of social networking, although instead of today’s egalitarianism, it was usually very elitist in nature.

  However, despite the importance of salon networks in setting much of the intellectual and social agenda of the age, most commentators believe that their social power operated in isolation. In other words, they were far removed from court and did not directly influence the state apparatus of government.

  Sometimes the author of a roman à clef, made a written key available, listing the real life names of the novel’s characters and unlocking the veiled secrets contained within the text. The Banker’s Dilemma adopts a number of these devices.