Dave Hart Omnibus

by David Charters

  So I do what investment bankers always do in meetings. Even though I don’t mean it, I smile. And as I swivel the briefcase round so that he can see what’s inside, I lean forward across the desk, grasping the handle of the machete.

  It’s a perfect moment. Rory’s eyes follow mine to the briefcase, widen as they take in the machete, his mouth drops open, and he turns and stares back at me.

  I nod and grin. Over the years I’ve done a lot of nodding and grinning at Rory, smiling as he told me I had to do another all-nighter, or cancel a holiday, or that the bonus couldn’t be quite what I was expecting because Fixed Income had had a tough year, or there were big losses in private equity, or whatever. But this time I’m grinning because I’m in charge. In the world of executive aggression, I’m breaking the rules. I’m introducing the real thing. And the man with the machete is always boss.

  The colour has drained beautifully from Rory’s normally tanned face, and his Adam’s apple is bobbing up and down in his throat. He’s facing a madman. Harvard Business School doesn’t teach you what to do next, does it, Rory?

  ‘Dave… wait…’ He raises a placating hand, and at the same time pushes his chair back from the desk. His eyes flicker across to the door, but the beauty of one of these large corner offices is that the door is a long way from the desk. A long way to savour the discomfort of the wretched people summoned here sweating to be told the result of a whole year of their lives. A long way to cover, with a madman swinging a machete at you.

  All I do is grin. I never knew this could be so much fun. He’s human, just like the rest of us. And he’s shitting himself. Quite why he ever thought he could carry on messing with real people’s lives the way he did is beyond me. Out there on the street, people get mugged for a walletful of notes. In here we’re talking millions. What would you do for millions?

  ‘Dave – we need to talk about this.’ His mouth is dry. He’s finding it hard to get the words out, and joy of joys, he’s perspiring.

  I shake my head. ‘Talking’s over.’

  ‘Dave – I have a wife, children – please don’t do anything rash.’

  ‘This isn’t rash. I’ve had a long time to think about this.’

  ‘Dave – we’re investment bankers. Investment bankers don’t kill each other.’

  ‘The rules just changed.’ My voice is a whisper, but it’s totally calm, not a hint of the excitement, the bloodlust, the adrenaline pumping through me. Rory crumples at his desk and puts his head in his hands. His shoulders start heaving to and fro and a strange noise comes from him. I look at him, vaguely embarrassed. He’s sobbing.

  And then the door opens.

  The bubble bursts as a film crew appears. There are three of them. They are led by a tall, skinny woman with mousy hair wearing a dark grey trouser suit who looks almost but not quite beautiful in an uptight, bossy, reporter-like way. She is flanked by a scruffy, shaggy haired camera man and an even taller, skinny guy in jeans and a T-shirt, carrying what looks like a very large sound recorder and a long-handled microphone. Behind them, Rory’s PA is trying to get past, looking apologetic. Before she can get a word in, the woman, whom I’ve recognised as a pushy dimwit who asks idiotic questions on NTV Cable Business News, marches across the room with her hand thrust out.

  ‘Amie Short – we’re here to do the piece on this year’s bonus round in the City. Which of you is Rory?’

  Possibly for the first time in my life, I experience one of those moments when everything happens very slowly. Rory has leapt to his feet, knocking over his chair, and I watch as he rushes forward to grasp her hand in both of his, swivelling her around so that she’s standing between him and me. She doesn’t know it, but she’s his human shield.

  ‘Me – I’m Rory, that’s me. Welcome, come in, all of you, come in.’

  His voice is unnaturally squeaky and high-pitched, he’s breathing hard, and he has sweat patches under his arms.

  For a deliciously crazy moment I wonder whether to bring the machete out of my briefcase and start swinging and slashing at everyone in the room. I imagine blood splashing over the carpet and the blinds and the desk, limbs and lumps of raw meat flying around so the place looks like an abattoir. I imagine standing triumphantly amidst the corpses – ‘NTV Cable Business News regrets to announce the death of our reporter Amie Short and her film crew. Amie was covering this year’s bonus round at Bartons, the blue chip UK investment bank, when she got caught in the middle of a discussion between star investment banker Dave Hart and his boss…’ But instead, I drop the machete back into the briefcase and click it shut, closing the lid that shielded it from the film crew.

  Rory is standing, panting, next to Amie, ignoring her, staring at me. She’s looking at him curiously, and follows his glance in my direction.

  ‘Are we interrupting something?’

  No, of course not, you brain-dead moron. Try rubbing both brain cells together and see if you get a spark. I was just about to kill my boss, you dimwit. It’s the sort of thing that happens at this time of year. Or at least this year.

  I smile confidently and nod back. ‘No, no problem.’ I turn to Rory. ‘I think we’d covered the ground. Rory, I’ll see you another time. We need to pick up where we left off. Maybe I’ll pop around to your place tonight? Or if not tonight, then some other time. I’m sure I’ll catch you again.’

  He just stares at me, open-mouthed, to the obvious puzzlement of the film crew. I walk purposefully out of his office, swing by my desk to grab my jacket from the back of the chair, smiling at the team, who have probably been laying bets on how I would do, and head out of the building fast, before Rory can wake up and call security.

  It’s only when I emerge from the Underground in Sloane Square and dump the machete in a rubbish bin, having wiped the handle fastidiously with my handkerchief and wrapped it in a newspaper, that I realise I’ve utterly blown it.

  If you’re going to kill your boss, you really have to do it. No half measures. I return to my empty, barren flat and start re-running the whole scene in my mind over and over again. I knew what I had to do, but I couldn’t even get that right.

  Without Wendy and Samantha, the flat seems soulless. Half the cupboards and wardrobes are empty. All the familiar sounds and smells are gone. I spend the rest of the day moping around the place, wallowing in depression, waiting for the doorbell to ring and armed police to arrest the maniac who thought he could kill his boss. I stare at myself in the mirror, noting the first grey hairs at thirty-seven years of age, the lines on my face, the slightly sagging belly. How did it all happen?

  But then I start to wonder. I’m an investment banker, after all, and we’re nothing if not resilient. The doorbell hasn’t rung, neither has the phone, and when I fire up the computer and log in to my e-mails, it’s all routine stuff, some banter from the team about the bonus round, but nothing about me. Then I start to think about the situation. What will Rory do? What can he do? Make some crazy allegations? Where’s the proof? Who would believe him? Of all the people in the world, Dave Hart must be the least likely ever to bite back. And if they didn’t believe him, and I was still out here, on the loose, watching and waiting and knowing where he lives – I have the addresses of all of his homes – he’d be the one who was scared. In the safely cocooned, insulated world of the global investment banker, no one actually gets hurt – at least not physically.

  Finally at around five o’clock I make a decision. I experience a burst of what is known in the markets as irrational exuberance. I was going to kill my boss, but I didn’t. And so far, I’ve got away with it. Nothing’s happened. I’m a free man, and who knows what possibilities lie ahead? I go out and buy a half case of champagne, plus whisky, vodka and gin, replenishing the stocks that I’ve exhausted over the previous weeks of uncertainty, call up a couple of drinking buddies and decide to have a party. It may be the last party I’ll ever have, so I might as well make it good – the condemned man and all that.

  The buddies I call up are Da
n Harriman, who runs European equities at Hardman Stoney, and Nigel Farmer, the number two on the oil trading desk at Berkmann Schliebowitz. Both are single men, in the sense that they are divorced – Dan recently for the second time – and both know how to party. You might think three guys sitting around in my flat drinking is a pretty sad sort of party, but I haven’t told you about the hookers.

  Hookers? Well, no, not exactly. Escorts. High-class escorts. These days you can find them on the internet, whole galleries full of them. Not the firm’s internet of course – the firewall stops you browsing from the office. That’s why we all have these rinky-dink, tiny personal laptops with Wi-Fi connections. You didn’t think all those young men sitting on public benches in the ‘Wi-Fi village’ at Canary Wharf were checking stock prices, did you?

  And let’s be absolutely clear what happens when you book these girls. You’re paying for their time and company only. Anything else that happens is a private matter between consenting adults. Yes, really.

  So around ten o’clock that night, Dan is sitting on the sofa in my living room, his shirt off, exposing his flabby, hairy belly, his trousers and underpants around his ankles, and blonde-haired, twenty-three year old Ilyana from Kiev is going down on him. Nigel, similarly half-dressed, is standing by the drinks cabinet, pouring himself another large Scotch, while dark-haired Carla, twenty-one, from Brazil kneels at his feet and services him. I’m totally naked, sitting in the large armchair, while red-haired Helena from Warsaw straddles me. On the rug in front of the fireplace Patricia from Spain, a brunette whose hair reaches almost to her waist, and Beatrice, a beautiful black girl from Columbia, are lying head to toe, servicing each other for our entertainment and pleasure. All of the girls are naked, obviously, and their clothes and lingerie are scattered around the apartment, on the furniture, on the floor, a g-string here, a micro-bra there. Half empty champagne bottles and glasses are similarly spread around, there’s a suspicious scattering of white powder on the glass coffee table, and on the huge, flat screen wall-mounted TV over the fireplace there’s a hard-core movie showing a stunning blonde from California kneeling on all fours and being serviced at both ends by a couple of studs who are hung like gorillas.

  You might think this is the kind of thing that goes on every night in those exclusive apartments around Sloane Square, but in fact I haven’t partied like this since before I was married. Honestly. At least not at home.

  The drugs and the porn were not my idea. Dan brought those. I don’t use drugs, and I regard porn as a poor substitute for the real thing. The escorts, okay, I take some of the blame, but how was I to know what these girls would do? And the only reason investment bankers get dragged into these murky areas is because their clients want it. Honestly.

  So there we were, the party in full swing, and it wasn’t yet late, when I could swear I heard a key in the front door. I look past Helena, who is moaning and groaning at the top of her voice, throwing her head around, rolling her eyes and doing an amazing fake orgasm impression, and there, standing shocked and amazed in the entrance to the living room, is Wendy. She’s wearing a sober dark grey skirt and jacket by Armani, with a white silk blouse, and discreet emerald and pearl earrings from Elizabeth Gage. She looks stylish and beautiful in an understated, luxurious way. And terribly small, frightened and vulnerable. My heart goes out to her and for a sickening moment I think I can remember why I fell in love with her.

  ‘What… is going on?’ Christ. She’s shaking her head as she takes in the scene around her, and giving me one of those ‘this is too horrible, I just can’t believe it’ looks.

  Dan looks up from the sofa, and reaches across for his crumpled jacket, momentarily ignoring the bobbing head in his lap. He’s got a crazy look on his sweaty, florid face. He pulls out his wallet and looks up at Wendy.

  ‘Here’s five hundred quid. Get your kit off. Bend over the coffee table and I’ll have you next.’ Dan’s never met Wendy. He’s holding out a pile of notes, and frowns as she screams and fixes me with a half-crazed stare.

  ‘I wanted to come back! I wanted to stand by you! I wanted to give you a second chance!’ She turns and runs back towards the front door.

  ‘Wendy! Darling! This isn’t what you think…’

  The front door slams and Dan looks at me and shrugs. ‘Women…’

  I NEED TO get away. Anywhere. Fast.

  I’ve hardly slept since Dan and Nigel and the last of the girls left, around three a.m. Yes, that’s right – three a.m. Of course we carried on partying after Wendy left. What else could we do? We’d all taken Viagra – my one concession to chemical assistance – there were five girls already in the apartment, with a new shift due to arrive at midnight, and we were flying.

  But now it’s eight a.m., I’ve hardly slept and there are ugly monsters crawling out of the darkest corners of my mind, monsters with names like conscience and trust and integrity. I think if I stay here any longer I’ll go mad.

  And what if the police come? Rory’s had a whole night to ponder what to do. I bet he hasn’t slept either. Should I call him? By now he’ll probably have his phone lines monitored. He’s not a man to under-estimate. What if he’s hired someone to come after me?

  That makes me think. Could he? In the movies he would. But in real life, if you don’t mix with the criminal classes – other than smart, white collar criminals, who don’t actually hurt people, but do things like running hedge funds and dealing on insider information – how would you know where to go to hire a hit-man? That’s one service you can’t yet order over the internet.

  I’m spooked. I admit it. I rush frenetically around the flat, picking up used condoms, clearing away empty bottles and glasses, hoover up every last trace of powder around the coffee table, search under the cushions for Ilyana’s missing g-string and put it down the waste disposal, and finally collapse, exhausted and still feeling guilty, and stare around my prison cell. The terrifying thought strikes me that it could so easily be swapped for a real prison cell, and investment bankers just don’t do prison. Prison is for little people, the great unwashed, the huge unwealthy masses who toil in the industries whose fate we decide with our clever deal-making skills. It’s not for us, at least as long as we stick to the unspoken code. But I didn’t. Machetes aren’t covered by the code.

  I need to leave town. Somewhere hot, far away, with a beach, a complete change of scene, and of course hot and cold running nymphettes. I know where I need to go. Hardman Stoney had their MDs’ off-site there last year, and Dan can give me the low-down on the local scene. I go on-line, make a few calls, and to my surprise and good fortune strike lucky, picking up a last minute cancellation. I pack a bag and call a cab to take me to Heathrow. I figure that I’ve lost my job – I can’t see Rory having me back – and with my debts and overdraft, the balance of the mortgage, and my imminent divorce, I’m as close to being insolvent as anyone who plays in the high stakes casino of the Square Mile and loses. So I do the obvious thing, use my corporate credit card – amazingly still working, what is Rory (not) doing?! – and book a First Class ticket. Jamaica beckons – Caribbean sunshine, reggae music and nubile black bodies. I have to escape.

  It’s the pre-Christmas rush, and when I get to Heathrow, thousands of wannabe holidaymakers are thronging in the departure hall. My Gold Card doesn’t help, because I haven’t had time to pick up a ticket, and need to queue to get an e-ticket from a machine. When I finally do get my ticket, I need to queue again to get some currency – Jamaican dollars for out of pockets, and US dollars, as the global currency of available young women everywhere. Then, privilege of privileges, I get to queue again, this time for security. After all this, I get to line up to board. I’m late, and there doesn’t seem to be a separate line for First Class passengers to go ahead of the waiting throng.

  In front of me in the line is the family from hell. The father, who I gather by eavesdropping is called Mick, is a forty-something, shaven-headed thug in a tracksuit and perfectly unblemished white trainer
s – presumably freshly shoplifted for the holiday from Lilywhites or bought from ‘some bloke down the pub, can’t remember his name, officer, honestly’ - with an earring and a sour, hostile look on his face. The mother is a flabby beast soaked in an overwhelming aura of cheap scent and wearing tight pink leggings and a bulging white vest that leaves her bare arms and shoulders exposed to show off her tattoos. I can tell she’s an ugly slapper with attitude just by looking at her – I don’t need her to tattoo herself to spell it out. Jason and Kennie are aged about seven and nine, just old enough to have acquired their father’s surly resentment. You lookin’ at me? You want some? Despite their age, every second word starts with an ‘f’, until their mother catches my eye and tells them to ‘stop that bloody swearing’. I’m wearing a blazer from Brooks Brothers, slacks and an open shirt from Gieves and Hawkes, with tan leather lace-up shoes from Fratelli Rossetti. To her I probably look like some kind of authority figure. She looks back to me, as if for approval, but I turn away, scowling.

  What pisses me off most, apart from the fact that I have to stand next to them, is that they probably all live on benefits, paid for out of taxes raised from people like me. In fact, when I think about all the money I’ve paid in taxes in recent years, even without getting anything like my fair due at bonus time, I probably support a whole village full of idiots. And Rory, well he must support a couple of large towns of these people. Maybe they should name one after him, or call all of their first-born sons Rory? Between the MD’s at the firm, we must support a whole county. Add in the other top investment banks, and the hedge fund industry, and the pension funds and insurance companies in the City, and pretty soon you’re funding a whole underclass of work-shy, uneducated, irretrievably incapable parasites. All they can do is consume and breed and occasionally fight, while someone else picks up the tab. People in the real world may not like the privileged élite who work in the Square Mile, but what would they do without us? Who else would pay for their social failures, allowing them to indulge in the notion of a caring society? Let’s hear it for capitalism.