The Rare Event

by P D Singer

  “Even if it doesn’t run up higher, we can always tender it to NorthAm,” he reassured himself as much as his crew. “But let’s see what the feeding frenzy does.”

  “Why would it go higher?” Pramiti asked, a slightly worried frown creasing her pretty face. Vaughn read off a transaction that was very likely the one Jon had just made.

  “Ah, this is an exercise left for the student.” Jon forced himself to lean back in Dwight’s chair, his hands behind his head. “Who wants to explain?”

  The curtain rose on the Dwight and Iggy Show. “NorthAm’s 55 is a new floor, not a ceiling, because no one has to sell on the open market for less.” Dwight opened. “If they are, it’s because they want the cash now, not after a couple of weeks when the tender’s complete.” The senior traders beamed their approval as one, and Jon stifled a snicker—Dwight had probably figured this out before he’d left high school.

  “And if the bonds run up and stay up, NorthAm can either reissue the tender at a higher price or buy on the open market,” Iggy said, finishing the thought. “Or they can forget the whole thing.” He leaned ever so slightly against the solid wall of information standing behind him. Maybe money had the same effect on those two as it had on Ricky and Jon.

  Ouch. That would collapse the price back to around 36. “Kate, would they do that?” Jon sat up straight in spite of himself.

  “Not a chance: they’ve committed themselves here. That tender offer won’t expire for a month, and they won’t want to end up with partial control.” Kate came back into the same universe as the rest of them for a moment, then returned to whatever trance she’d been in—probably calculating NorthAm’s effects on GlobalSky’s fixed costs. Maybe they had fuel futures at a favorable price. Jon waved Dwight off to Clerical with a small fortune in his hand.

  “You spent half of what we’ve got,” Corbin pointed out. “What’s the plan?”

  “We’re going to wait a bit, see when it starts moving up, because unless Larry’s bosses start leaning on him to liquidate, he’s going to hold out for some better prices—he probably ended up with 70 percent of GlobalSky’s entire bond issue after that little meltdown.” Jon snapped around to listen to Pramiti read another sale, subsiding when it wasn’t different than the quote he’d gotten. “And then we’ll see if we can’t goose this market a little bit.”

  “Itty bitty Gorman Hogenboom, goosing the market?” Miranda put things into perspective.

  “Well, not all by ourselves,” Jon conceded, “but us piling in with some others may tip the scales.” He watched the ticker, telling himself he’d be out of this one way or another before long, and marshaling his thoughts for the inevitable question from Ricky—why had he not hedged his enormous purchase? But he had, or NorthAm had done it for him, with a tender offer of 55.

  Where was Ricky? Jon left his staff huddled around the Bloomberg and tried Ricky’s cell. No answer—now Jon worried in earnest. Even after his worst debauches, Ricky’d always shown up for work, and Jon could only imagine what kind of rampage he’d gone on last night after watching his rival leave with his ex.

  Jon dialed again, and this time left a message. “Call me,” he begged in his lover’s voice, not the demand he could have made in a boss’s legitimate anger. “Tell me where you are, and are you all right?”

  But his phone didn’t ring back, and Jon reluctantly went back to the trading floor to see what GlobalSky bonds were doing.

  Several transactions had come by in quick succession, judging from the timestamps, and the price—Jon met Kate’s eyes and an agreement flashed between them. Picking up the phone again, Jon brandished the handset at his staff. “Let the games begin!”

  The games took a while—Jon sat on queue while Pramiti read off another four prices, higher than he’d just paid, and the size of the transactions had grown around 20 percent too. Kate came to rub Jon’s shoulders and smile her tigress smile. “We are going to make a fortune,” she whispered, but the market-maker didn’t take Jon’s call until after he nodded his reply.

  “GlobalSky, ten million.” Jon put every iota of confidence into that request.

  “Fifty-four, fifty-eight.” Larry rattled off his buying and his selling prices with an undertone of excitement—Jon could imagine the sweat running down his back at the prospects of a large fortune at the end of the day—he’d acquired much of his bond inventory at prices similar to Jon’s and now wanted close to forty points more than he’d paid during the panic.

  “Fifty-eight, buying.”

  “You’re done!”

  He was—Jon had spent all he could on this project, all the entire fund could buy of anything, and at a higher price than he’d expected when he’d dialed the call. “We just spent another 5.8 million, sports fans.” Jon had narrowly avoided calling them “boys and girls,” but he would not bring back even the echo of Edgar, even if it meant stumbling over his words. “Where do we sit now?”

  Dwight whirled to the dry erase board. Iggy grabbed a pen and pad, as did Vaughn, Pramiti, and Chloe, who ripped sheets off to hand to frantic senior traders. “We have ten million at 55, ten million at

  58—”

  Yes, that got a small wince in the crowd, but it was more than offset when Pramiti, abandoning her hushed tones, called, “Ten million, 58, bet that’s us, five million, 59!”

  Everyone scribbled as Jon went on, “Ten million at 18, eighteen million at 36, and, Kate?”

  “Fifteen million at 19.” She whipped out her cell phone. “Geoff should be here shortly. Won’t he be glad he didn’t sell?”

  “With a bid at 54, let’s say we tendered at 55, what do we have?” Jon wished he had a bottle of antacid, a bottle of champagne, and someone to kiss when he heard the numbers, but lacking all those, he twirled his pen in his fingertips and tried to look as if he’d personally planned this entire caper.

  “We’re up a little over twelve million on an outlay of about twenty-two and a half.” Dwight read the numbers off as if he couldn’t believe what he’d calculated, and looked around the room. No one had gotten different results, apparently.

  “That’s up just past 50 percent, allowing for expenses.” Corbin, who made his money slowly and steadily, sounded stunned. “In one day.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be just 50 percent,” Pramiti piped up. “Twelve million at 60.”

  “One day of excitement and weeks of sitting on some assets,” Jon reminded him. “All based on good analysis and good planning.” He nodded to Kate, who had ceased dancing but couldn’t stand still.

  “And willingness to take some risks.” Corbin had the same opportunity to buy but hadn’t expanded his portfolio when prices were in the basement.

  Jon would have to have a word with him about that, but considered how the fund normally diversified. “We’d still be in the money without the bonds we bought today, but this way everybody shares. That ten million gets credited evenly among the six traders, by the way.”

  “Yay for the new boss!” Miranda screamed, and pulled Jon out of Dwight’s chair to hug him and pass him through the group for backslaps and more hugs.

  Pramiti’s shout of, “Five million at 60, seven million at 61!” brought more screaming from the group. Just as Kate whirled by in a pirouette more suited to toe shoes than high heels, Jon noticed that Ricky stood in the doorway, staring.

  “Did I miss a rare event?”

  KATE twirled to Ricky, throwing herself at him with the misplaced confidence that he’d catch her for the dip. He did offer a hand to hoist her off the floor and ignored her aggrieved brushing at her clothing. The little maniac obviously had more to be happy about than he did.

  “No, I’d say you’re right on time.” Jon’s eyes crinkled, even if he didn’t laugh out loud, and Ricky didn’t know if his enjoyment was only for Kate’s pratfall, whatever market upheaval had brought the entire group to prance around the main trading floor, or if he had more private reasons as well. That he’d be smiling to see Ricky was too much to
hope for. “More or less.”

  At least he didn’t seem inclined to bitch about the hour—just because the lab would test while one waited didn’t mean the wait might not be rather long and stomach-churning. Ricky patted the papers in his pocket for confidence. “So fill me in?” He came to read over Pramiti’s shoulder.

  “NorthAm Air tendered 55 for GlobalSky bonds, and the market has flipped out.” Jon wasn’t kidding—61?

  Ricky hadn’t bought any. “Guess I am too late.” Everyone else would have a nice positive number today. He turned away, but Corbin blocked him, trying to peer around to the screen.

  “No, you’re in for about 2.6 million bucks at an average of 56.5.”

  “No,” Jon amended that. “Closer to 2.4 million. I didn’t spend everything. It didn’t come out evenly.”

  Since that was considerably more than the balance he’d thought he had to work with, Ricky lifted an eyebrow.

  “New capital, plus I raided your account. It was for a good cause.” Jon sounded sheepish, and well he might, although he was the boss now, not a concerned colleague or lover. Especially not a lover—Ricky didn’t want to look more closely, lest he see signs on Jon such as Ricky had sported after other nights out. How had he put Jon through that? And how had Jon taken it, week after week, month after month?

  Ricky went for nonchalance. “See that you make a profit with it.”

  “We will. Speaking of which, people, we’re acting like we don’t have any other investments. Go tend the store!” Jon shooed everyone off. “Ricky, come see me.”

  If Jon asked for a moment of Ricky’s time, no matter how he meant it, he could have it. Ricky followed Jon to the office.

  “Where were you?” Jon didn’t sit, nor did he accuse. If Ricky didn’t know better, he’d say Jon was worried about him, the way he used to be.

  “Emergency medical appointment. I should have called, but I had to turn off my phone in the clinic.” Ricky would tell Jon everything if he asked, but under the office’s fluorescent lights, it seemed a fool’s errand, nothing that might win Jon back. Not after an evening inspecting his new luxurious home and dining in candlelight with handsome, devoted Davis.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “It turned out to be nothing.” In so many ways. Ricky wanted to throw his arms around Jon, demand to know things that weren’t his right to ask, and promise that it would never make any difference if Jon would just please come back and maybe, though he knew he had no right to ask it, not do it again. He made no move to Jon, but perhaps he couldn’t keep the need off his face.

  “I don’t have any news, either.” Jon didn’t reach out, but there was something on his face—wistfulness?—and it made Ricky hope that the wistfulness was for him, and not for Davis or for what neither he nor Davis would ever have. “He’s going back to Philadelphia.”

  “I can’t say I’m sorry for that.” No, though Ricky was sorry for all the times he’d made Jon endure knowing he’d been with someone else, never thinking that it felt like—this.

  “I wouldn’t expect you to.” The quick almost-smile flickered across Jon’s face. “I did try to call you about raiding your account, but….”

  “Time was of the essence,” Ricky finished for him. “You were looking out for me.” Was that the only reason you tried?

  Jon nodded, a tiny motion Ricky could barely see.

  “That’s what you’ve always done, whether I understood it or not.”

  Jon nodded again, and Ricky risked a plea. “From now on I won’t be too stupid to appreciate that.” He wanted to offer his hands to Jon, not daring to offer more, although his heart was in his hands. Ricky feared to move.

  “Good.” Jon swallowed hard but did not lift his hands. “Let’s—go see what our horrible mortgage lenders are doing.”

  HORRIBLE mortgage lenders were the only thing Jon could think of to keep from sliding into Ricky’s arms. Something broken had mended visibly, and Jon wanted to smooth over the chipped edges, make it all right for Ricky, who’d taken these sorts of chips out of Jon and never pretended otherwise.

  But Ricky was a smart trader, smart enough to know he’d had a huge favor done, to be piggybacked into profits. And Ricky hadn’t pushed for more, though Jon had been tempted to offer. But what would he be offering? Another chance for Ricky to have his cake and eat it too, knowing that Jon had caved without any kind of assurances. No, to take another risk on Ricky, he’d have to hedge his position.

  Once again, Jon’s chest went hollow, because Davis had offered everything that Ricky had never thought to give. More than everything, because he’d offered time. The memory of that one kiss would haunt him, with the promise of joy and the knowledge, more certain than he’d told Davis, that he was doing something very wrong, unforgivable, if he took more. Jon had lain awake most of the night, trying to convince himself that the barrier between them was a matter of perception, not blood. By the time he’d finally been sucked under, he still wasn’t sure he should promise Davis visits if they would only break his heart later rather than sooner.

  Why couldn’t Ricky have offered that same kind of commitment?

  The ABX, when he finally shook himself out of his regrets enough to notice, had dropped another three points, and Jon considered shorting the index. If there was an uptick, he could, but when he checked the news on the lenders, that looked doubtful indeed. Maybe Dwight or Iggy had some insight, and in the meantime, $3 million of out-of-the-money puts looked like they’d be worth something soon, within a week or two if declines continued. Checking Ricky’s short position on the three lenders he’d targeted, Jon noted that would net him a profit already, and the only question remained—how much?

  “How much had they made on GlobalSky?” was the question that sent him out of the office again, in search of the rowdiness of shared profits.

  NO NEWS—wasn’t that the classical definition of good news? Ricky tried to reassure himself that he still had a chance with Jon if flowers, lofts, and a romantic dinner hadn’t lured him into Davis’s bed.

  The good news from the stock tickers when Ricky checked his short positions didn’t cheer him. That was one more case where Jon had been right and he’d been arrogant and dismissive. Jon hadn’t asked him to eat any crow when Ricky had returned to work, only shared the research and let Ricky make of it what he could, which would turn out to be piles of money. The upheaval in the mortgage market was mere rumbling now but would soon be an earthquake if Jon and Dwight were right. Ricky glanced to the analyst, who had a hand resting lightly on Iggy’s shoulder while they leaned over Pramiti. That wasn’t a rare event, but something more predictable. Ricky thought back to the ad offering jobs for borrowers in the Wichita newspaper and shivered. How had he ignored such an omen?

  The run-up in the airline bonds was also predictable. Kate had mused about consolidation in the industry when prices were low, and he’d sat on the couch with Geoff instead of passing paperwork under the door to Logan. Even so, Jon had found a way to let Ricky share the bounty.

  Ricky needed a couple of rare events desperately. Finding a decent place to live on short notice wasn’t a ten-sigma event, but convincing Jon to come back might be.

  Chirping from his pocket pulled his attention away from the monitor. Ricky sat down at an empty desk, hoping the call was from the realtor and that she had some leads for him. He might as well have not grabbed a pen, or even answered—it was Edgar.

  “The kitchen’s clean, the floor is vacuumed, my bags are packed, and I’ll be out of the apartment before you leave the office.” Edgar didn’t waste his breath on pleasantries; Ricky would only have cut him off. He must want something.

  “How nice for me.” Ricky would have an Edgar-free month for apartment hunting. He wouldn’t give that stronzo the satisfaction of asking.

  “It gets better.” Edgar took on a note of wheedling. Ricky started a sketch of Edgar with a toad’s body. “Don’t you want to know how?”

  “I get my security dep
osit back and go live somewhere you can’t ever come in.” A few quick lines became bent legs in trousers. “That’s going to be fantastic.”

  “Ricky, I just said I’m leaving.” Edgar spoke slowly, as if Ricky were slow on the uptake. “The place is all yours again—you only have to sign the lease.”

  It wasn’t Ricky who was slow. “So you can barge in again any time your wife finds out more of your hideous secrets? Not taking the chance.” He gave the toad a necktie.

  “Well, about that…. I haven’t seen any full-page ads in the Times, and if you’ll promise not to do that, I’ll just take my name off the lease completely.” The ingratiating smile Ricky put on the toad matched the tone of Edgar’s voice.

  “Why would I do that? I’m going out with the agent tomorrow.” A bulgy eye appeared on the page.

  “But you don’t have to, don’t you see? You can stay right where you are, and I’ll be out of your hair.”

  “You’ll be out of my hair anyway. You were in such a hurry to sign that lease—it’s all yours.” Ricky grinned, thinking of the 10 percent hike in the rent, and it was Edgar’s obligation now. Better yet if he wasn’t going to live there—it would cost him in cash or aggravation. Ricky sketched in reading glasses over the goggle-eyed face. “Besides, I thought your wife was carving up your assets in a divorce.”

  “Carving, yes, divorce, no. She’s keeping me, unless….” Edgar’s gulp was audible. “I’ll fund the difference between the new rent and the old rent if you won’t mention that.”

  He wouldn’t mention it anyway; the poor woman already knew she was married to Edgar. After so many years she had to be aware of what kind of man he was. If she chose to stay, it had to be for reasons of her own, or if she chose to leave, that also had to be for reasons of her own. Jon had stayed with Ricky, knowing. And then he had left, having had enough. Ricky would have punched anyone who’d hurt him by saying to his face what Jon had already known. Mrs. Wolfe would have to sort out the old pervert without Ricky’s interference, but it was damned fine to hear Edgar squirm.