The Rare Event

by P D Singer

  RICKY didn’t answer his cell phone that night or the next morning—Jon hoped he was polishing his résumé but feared he was drinking himself into oblivion. Before he ever walked into the office, Jon’s mood was furious with a side of apprehension, and Edgar promptly justified both.

  “We saw some turmoil in the housing and the mortgage lending sectors yesterday. Those of you who called that correctly are still here; those who didn’t, and failed to cover their asses, are not. Covering your position around here is a given, is it not?” Edgar, back to his puffed-up, greedy self, glared around the room. Dissenters will be ground to a powder and blown away, his eyes said, and they lingered unpleasantly on Jon, who refused to cower.

  “Either you follow instructions, or you do not work here. Is that clear?” Edgar turned the laser beams on the junior staff. Not a one of them flinched, but the threat hung in the air. “Trade wisely. Dwight—”

  Whistling an old pop tune, Jon interrupted what could have been the too-familiar request for a moment of that young man’s time. The words “dirty laundry” figured heavily into the lyrics. Edgar twitched.

  “I want the asset sheet for Ricky’s holdings by ten.” He didn’t stutter, but Jon didn’t believe for a moment that was what he’d initially meant to say. Whistling another couple of bars for emphasis, Jon sauntered to his office door.

  “We have a conference call with WideWest management at ten, Dwight,” he broke off his tune to say. “I went long a hundred shares to get us in on that. Don’t be late.” Locking eyes with Edgar across the trading floor, Jon remained in the doorway until the older man turned and disappeared behind his own closed door. Something clattered softly in his wake, but Edgar didn’t turn to look. Dwight bent to collect the object from the floor.

  “He gets that sheet at two minutes to ten, not a second before,” Jon instructed Dwight. “It’s going to be a moment-to-moment battle with him, I can tell.”

  “How am I going to get that list without asking him for the master password?”

  “Funny you should ask.” Jon logged out of his own screens and logged in using the keystrokes Ricky’d dictated back before everything went to hell. “Looks like Edgar hasn’t swept him out of the system yet.” Hitting “print” started machine chatter on the network printer. “Let’s take a look before we turn it over, shall we?”

  The totals were sobering: some cash, a few small holdings in companies that were up slightly, some puts that were headed toward being in the money. Jon checked the Bloomberg—WideWest was down 15 percent from Wednesday’s close, Lasker down closer to 20 percent and still dropping.

  “He had most everything in those two stocks. After the margin loans got paid back, all the loss came straight out of his pocket.” Wincing, Jon subtracted current value from previous and hurt for Ricky.

  “Wonder how Edgar’s going to divide the trading capital, or will he hire a new trader?” Dwight’s speculation matched Jon’s.

  “Don’t know. He doesn’t usually promote from within.” If Dwight wanted the position, he was hoping for the moon.

  “After Ricky, he won’t ever. But you know what? I don’t blame Ricky one bit—just too bad revenge crashed and burned him too.” Jon glanced up, surprised by this fierce assessment. Dwight, in one of the recently purchased suits and the tortoise glasses, looked almost every bit the Wall Street shark. “Revenge needs to be a little more subtle.”

  Jon looked his analyst up and down, nodding agreement and finding a hole in his own actions when he spied Dwight’s unpolished black oxfords. “Right. Why aren’t you wearing the new shoes? At least get a shoeshine—those will remind Edgar that you used to be a target.”

  Hiding one scuffed toe behind his heel, Dwight flushed. “I will. Think I should give this back or let him sweat it?” “This” was Edgar’s BlackBerry, produced from a pocket, and must have been what had clattered on the floor.

  Gulping at the thought of being without his own phone, Jon saw subtle revenge. “Put it back under the chair.”

  “First things first.” Dwight activated the display and punched up a list. “Here’s his home phone number.” He scribbled it down. “Might come in handy. Oh, and his wife’s cell. Man, would I love to take an hour and strip everything out of this.”

  Better and better: Jon’s laugh was nearly a growl. “Do it. Just don’t get caught at it.”

  Poking something on the phone, Dwight matched the growl. “Ringer’s off now.” He sat down with a pen, a pad, and a frightening intensity. “Wish I had a cable.” Jon made a mental note not to get on this man’s bad side. Poking and scribbling, Dwight attacked the data in the handheld device, mining for unknown treasure, until Jon noted the time.

  “Go take Edgar his sheet, and be back in”—Jon looked at the clock on the screen—“two minutes.”

  “Think I’m done here.” Dwight shoved the device in his pocket. “I’ll put it back where I found it, and if it gets stepped on, too bad for him.” He snorted. “Too bad for him anyway, he didn’t do any encryption, and I’ve found the most fascinating things.” Dwight shot out the door, and Jon punched up the conference call on speaker. Dwight was back before the introductions were complete.

  The chief financial officer and chief executive officer of WideWest welcomed all callers and then set out to defend their company. The questions, posed by major stockholders, both private and institutional, were hostile, and both Jon and Dwight took notes in their fly-on-the-wall capacity.

  “What is the current default rate and how does that compare with your projections of….”

  “Explain more fully about the earnings restatements, and will restating second quarter only….”

  “What kind of accounting errors have been….”

  “I am glad not to be in his shoes,” Dwight muttered, though the pickup was muted. One hundred shares didn’t give the shareholder enough clout to speak up, only to listen in.

  “Our shoes aren’t so bad,” Jon whispered back. “They’re down another 4 percent since trading opened.” He tapped the Bloomberg screen, where the stock quotes trended downward. “We may be in the money before the end of the day.”

  “What are the current loan forecasts for fourth quarter and have they been revised since….”

  The call ended, after much bobbing, weaving, and finally confessions of truly dismal numbers. Jon hung the phone up with a sigh. “This kind of rot has to be industry-wide, Dwight.”

  “What else can we short?”

  The office door swung open, revealing Edgar, looking slightly haggard. “Excuse me, boys, but have you seen my cell phone?”

  There was some fun to be had with this. Jon swung around in his chair, only a quarter turn since he’d arranged the room to never have his back to the door and Edgar again. “Good thing that conference call already ended, Edgar. We’re trying to make some money here.” He frowned at the boss, who knew full well that interrupting would have gotten them kicked from potentially vital information, and who might or might not have understood the mute function.

  “Yes, but have you seen my cell phone?” Edgar repeated, patting his pockets, as if the device would teleport in for the hoping.

  “I thought you had it this morning.” Jon stretched the truth to fit.

  “You usually lose it on the couch,” Dwight suggested blandly, giving Jon a vision of things escaping from pockets in trousers that were unzipped and gaping. Bleah.

  “Probably not today,” Edgar mumbled, “but I’ll look.” He bustled off.

  “What kind of fascinating things did you find?” Jon asked once the boss was out of earshot.

  “Wonder if his wife knows about all those accounts.” Dwight stroked the front of his jacket—the papers within crackled. “The Caymans are gorgeous, or so I hear.”

  “Knowledge is power, or so I hear,” Jon chimed in. They grinned at each other, the bared teeth of predators.

  “Damn it!” A scream and a crash from the main trading floor turned their heads—Edgar yelled again. “D
amn it all to hell!”

  “Think he stepped on it?” Jon hoped the crash followed from skating across the floor on the slick little phone, and enjoyed the visual.

  “Hope he smashed it to bits,” Dwight gloated, “because he might not be savvy enough to synch it with his computer.”

  “Too bad for him,” Jon intoned, and they turned to companies that were coming down just as surely as Edgar had landed on his ass.

  STILL no Ricky—Jon put his own phone back in his pocket. He’d called three times in the past hour and couldn’t really call again before he left for the game. Ricky couldn’t horn in on this one no matter how badly Jon might want him to—he had only two tickets for tonight’s home play-off game. The Tigers had beaten the Yankees last night in Detroit; the series stood 1-1, and Davis would be meeting him three stops up the subway line. They’d have a good time. But it would be a better time if he knew Ricky was all right.

  THE résumé didn’t need a great deal of tweaking—Ricky’d kept it current, in the hope that some prestigious outfit came a’knocking, not that he’d wanted to give up his easy lifestyle with the comparatively good compensation and the extremely good hours. Being at the office at 6:00 a.m. and leaving twelve hours later, as he knew traders did at many of the investment banks, didn’t have that much allure, making a market or no. He wondered how much effort it was going to be to get his accrued bonuses out of Wolfe Gorman. Edgar would try to hang on to the money for spite. Not only that—greed. Ricky’s performance had justified his bonuses, which were the bulk of his income and his down payment for the place he’d wanted to buy. That was out of the question now. Ricky’s last paycheck would pay the rent here, and as for the future….

  He’d have to dip into savings to write next month’s check to his mother. The old man never asked her about their relative prosperity, and Ricky wouldn’t bring it up by letting it disappear.

  He added the last few details, such as the dates of his association with Wolfe Gorman—June 1997 to September 2006 looked rather forlorn on the page, all alone in the experience section, but he’d been there since coming out of business school. The size of the portfolio he’d controlled looked microscopic now, and it was tiny compared to traders at any of the funds that made the pages of Kiplinger’s or Forbes. He decided to improve the situation by adding in the percentage of the total fund that his trading capital represented. That looked better.

  He’d need to write cover letters and rehearse interview speeches—he’d have to explain why he’d been fired, in a way that didn’t leave the blame on his losses, yet without openly bad-mouthing his former employer. Maybe he’d have the great good luck to interview with someone who knew Edgar and his proclivities. He’d start by calling everyone still in the financial industry who had left Wolfe Gorman in the past nine years—that should grease the rails considerably. And he’d use Geoff and Jon, not Edgar, as references.

  Ricky had a ton of calls to make before he cracked the bottle of lemon vodka he’d picked up at the package store. Glancing to the mural over his couch, with the roughed-in figures of Jon and part of himself, he figured he could use his new leisure to add details and features to the man who knelt between his upraised knees. After he’d had the vodka and been awake long enough for his hands to be steady. Ricky decided to add the mouth last, just in case a charcoal Jon could say I told you so.

  “COME over early afternoon, Jon,” Davis suggested over the clanking of the subway train, “and we can work on the loft for a while before we head back to Yankee Stadium.”

  “How? I don’t know a thing about what you’re doing.” Glad that he’d attended the play-off game, and with such knowledgeable company, Jon was grumpy from watching the Yankees lose.

  Davis laughed. “You’re going to look through magazines and websites, and pick out features you like, finishes, stuff like that.” The train lurched, throwing Davis against Jon and then dragging him back; hanging on a strap didn’t keep him in one place.

  “It’s your place, Davis; why would my opinion matter?” Jon’s balance was more practiced—he didn’t wobble so much.

  “You’ve seen a lot more lofts than I have, you’ve got good taste, and I don’t want this project to drag on. Aunt Jessica and Uncle Chaz might get tired of me.” The whoosh of the pneumatic doors interrupted him, and the struggle of someone to get out pushed Davis into Jon again. He shuffled forward two inches, paying for it in balance when the train started up again. “I’ll do the structural stuff, but you could save me weeks of time.”

  It wasn’t as if Jon had a lot else to do, although if he couldn’t get Ricky on the phone, he might have to go over and pound on the door. “I can try.”

  “Pick out three that you like, and I’ll choose from that, unless I hate them all.” Davis grinned.

  “Three whats?”

  “About a thousand things, starting with flooring, because that affects some structural choices. Tile needs a different subfloor than wood.” The doors opened on Davis’s stop, 86th and Lexington, and he squeezed Jon’s shoulder in farewell. “See you tomorrow. Be ready to look at bathrooms.” He disappeared into the station.

  Jon could only shake his head. Davis always had been delighted with a new project, whether it was a model plane or hay bale fort. Why shouldn’t he enjoy designing his living space?

  HIS phone sang yet again, but Ricky hesitated to poke the “straight to voice mail” button. Had a recruiter called, unlikely as that would be on a Saturday afternoon, he’d have slapped the phone to his head. No, it was Jon again, for what had to be the eighth time. Best get it over with.

  “Ricky, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine?” Leaving out the raging headache that he hadn’t had enough liquids or aspirins to banish, of course. He’d consumed most of his 750ml of self-pity since Thursday, but he wouldn’t fetch more.

  “I just wanted to hear it from you.”

  In the background, another voice said, “We have twenty-two by twenty, we can have a separate tub and shower.” Davis. Of course. “We” have….

  “I’m fine, really. Twenty-two by twenty is about two-thirds of my entire apartment. What are you doing?” Ricky glanced around his space—small, comfortable, and with the lease due to be renewed soon. He’d really like to get out from Edgar’s thumb; he had a rental history now and didn’t need the boost he’d gotten four years ago when he’d left being a roommate behind. He’d have to insist that the new lease not include a cosigner in any way. He should have insisted Edgar not renew with him last time, but he’d been—distracted.

  “Davis is designing his loft, which is all open space and bare pipes at the moment. I’m just kibitzing.” Jon paused. “Why would you want pedestal sinks?”

  Ricky didn’t, so that must have been meant for Davis. He didn’t hear the reply, but the irritation in Jon’s voice was clear. “They’re elegant, yeah, but you’re going to live here, not just look—where would you put the shaving cream and nail clippers?”

  “Are you winning the battle of design features?” Ricky drawled, irritated that Jon and Davis were doing something so intimate together, and that he was being drawn into it.

  “We’re finding out the difference between architects and people who want to live comfortably,” Jon said. “It’s not 100 percent overlap.”

  “Guess you’d better tell him if you want cherry or maple vanities.” Ricky agreed to check the following week with updates on the job hunt and hung up. Davis wouldn’t test-fuck an apartment, no, he’d build Jon a love nest to specifications, damn him. Ricky glanced up at his half-finished mural and tried to believe that Davis had never seen Jon from that particular angle.

  Chapter Thirty

  MORNING meeting was not the same without Ricky and his sketchpad. Jon thought sadly that he’d have had a field day with Edgar’s beady eyes behind reading glasses this morning. But no Ricky sat in Logan’s chair, dispossessing the owner onto the desktop, which also remained empty, and Jon felt their absence as a
reproach. He stood hipshot against the desk but didn’t sit.

  Edgar pulled his reading glasses a little farther down his nose and surveyed his paperwork, which looked very much like the columns of numbers Dwight had printed out the previous Friday. “We have assets not currently being used to their maximum, so I will be seeing you traders individually, to discuss changes. Also—” He looked over his glasses to the clump of assistants. “Liu has been with us almost three months, haven’t you, dear? We need to do an evaluation, though it should be a formality—your work has been sound.”

  A small snatch of tune mentioning dirty laundry floated out of Jon’s pursed lips. Edgar’s bane—that was funny, when he’d shied from every other confrontation. Edgar appeared to take no notice, saying only, “We’ll take a few minutes in my office before the markets open. Trade wisely, boys and girls. Liu, this way, please.”

  The analyst, trim in her navy suit and heels, her straight black hair brushing her shoulders, tapped across the floor to Edgar’s office, her face serene. Jon wondered how much the others had told her, or what she’d figured out from the events of last week. She disappeared into the office, and Edgar swung the door.

  “Leave the door open, Edgar.” Jon didn’t want to take the chance.

  “Personnel matters require privacy.” Edgar pulled his reading glasses off and glared. “You’re overstepping yourself, Hogenboom.” He shut the door more firmly than the latch required to click.

  “It’s not like he hasn’t just told everyone what’s going on,” Vaughn pointed out. “She’s staying. Why shouldn’t that door be open?”

  “He likes to sprawl all over the couch.” Dwight grimaced and looked like he wanted to spit.

  So did Jon, for getting information he didn’t want, from someone who would know.

  “Do you think he’ll…?” Chloe worried aloud.

  “Did anyone tell her what the score was?” Jon had not, thinking she knew, but perhaps she didn’t. He sought information from chagrined faces that all said, No. “Did she ever ask?” But that was immaterial. “Geoff!” He had the right to be in there, and really, the obligation. Jon found his boss standing by Kate at Pramiti’s desk. “Both owners should be involved in personnel decisions.”