Nothing Ventured

by Roderick Price

  “And last Friday?” Demand Gerard.

  “53.11 sir,” the response came curtly.

  “And one month ago, and two months ago today, what were the prices then?” continued Gerard.

  After a hurried shuffle of paper came the answers, “53.51 and 53.85.”

  “So, Mr. Sinclair,” Gerard continued, again peering over his pewter rims and glaring down at Hilton at the end of the table, “it would appear that, in fact, prices are not coming up now, are they?”

  “Prices are coming up,” shot back Hilton. “We’re building our positions in number two and number six fuel oil and I think it’s clear you have my ass if prices do not come up.”

  “To be clear,” Gerard replied coolly, “we have no interest whatsoever in your ass. You are an employee of this company and you are charged with preserving and enhancing the value of our hydrocarbon production from around the world. For several months now, it seems that under your direction, we have been neither preserving nor enhancing anything other than your continued good fortune with this company. On this book alone, we stand nearly twenty million barrels and almost $33 million dollars out of the market. We will take no further positions toward this strategy, Mr. Sinclair. At your request, we will hold the portfolio we have; and we will be back in exactly thirty days to take appropriate action based upon our standing at that time. Am I making myself clear?”

  “Come down anytime you wish,” said Hilton. “It’s always a pleasure.”

  “Am I making myself clear?” Said Gerard again. Hilton was getting to him; Gerard was flushed with anger. At the last moment, Gerard restrained himself and waited for an answer.

  “Yes Gerard,” replied Hilton. “You are making yourself perfectly clear.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Lacrosse was an old river town on the banks of the Mississippi River. The French explorer Lafayette named Lacrosse when he passed through the area on a fur-trading expedition in 1720. Indians playing a racquet-like sport on the river plain reminded Lafayette of the sport he knew from his native France as lacrosse. Western Wisconsin was beautiful country, with dramatic limestone cliffs, tree-covered hills and meandering valleys known by the locals as “coulees.” This area of Wisconsin had been mysteriously left untouched by glaciers millions of years ago.

  Lacrosse was really settled in the 1820s and 1830s when Scandinavian and German farm families came seeking new opportunities and religious freedom in America. They found this land to look stunningly similar to their Motherland. Beginning in 1870, powerful lumber barons built huge sawmills along the rivers: Mississippi, Wisconsin, Black, Chippewa, Bad Ax, Zumbro and Saint Croix. Like a storm, they mercilessly clear-cut virgin timbers for burgeoning Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, populations East and New York. Twenty years later, the barons, the mills and the huge, old trees were gone. For decades, only the sweat of the Norwegian dirt farmers enabled the land and the towns to further develop, masking over the scarred face of the land.

  Martin always liked the drive from Lacrosse “Up North” to northern Wisconsin. From the Minneapolis airport, Martin called his parents several times the previous night to keep them informed of his delayed departure. Even though it was almost one in the morning before he landed, both of his parents were there to meet him at the terminal. Each time now, they seemed smaller than he remembered them. He found himself watching their steps, holding their arms as they walked together, and hugging them longer at the close of each visit. After a short drive and an hour or so around the kitchen table discussing how Houston and the family were doing, Martin collapsed into bed at a little after two.

  Before sunrise, he and his dad were heading north up State Highway 53 to meet his brother and the rest of their gang for breakfast in Whitehall. Five minutes into the darkness, with Martin at the wheel, his dad rustled through the back seat and came out with his trusty old forest green stainless Thermos bottle and poured two steaming cups of black coffee. Over the background of the Milwaukee Stockyard livestock quotations, Martin tried to relax back in his seat. He knew it was time to talk.

  “Liz and I have a problem” Martin began. He could not believe his voice cracking even now as he said it.

  A deep harbor, his father took his time responding. “What kind of problem is that?”

  “She says that we’ve drifted apart. She says we’re going nowhere. She says she needs more…” his voice trailed off. Again, there was a measured silence. Martin had the sensation of being underwater. He recalled those days of diving headlong into the greenish-brown waters of the Mississippi. He winced at the thought of stepping barefoot into the muck on the bottom. The pressure on his ears was piercing. Martin peered forward into the darkness as his ears filled with the dull thud of pounding pavement.

  “What did you say?” his father said.

  “I’m not sure it makes a difference what I say, “ said Martin. “She says she wants a divorce.“

  Actually, Martin thought, she had a helluva lot more to say than that. After dinner the other night, she began with a recounting of their plans, their hopes, and their dreams. Their early days of lovemaking and the way they used to do crazy, spontaneous things like the Thanksgiving they rented a car and drove to Santa Fe and back, just because they’d never been there. When they had the girls, they were in Houston with no extended family around them. At the time it didn’t seem like anybody else really cared. At the restaurant, Martin had sat listening to her in total, unblinking silence. He sat numbly watching her lips as the words flowed. He shouldn’t have gotten angry, but he did.

  He was a “good man,” she had said; a hard-working, dedicated father. But she was tired of “going nowhere” as she described it. She recounted one by one, at each point over the last three years, when she had slowly given up. Other people, it seemed, had become more interesting, doing more things, building bigger houses, making more money and going more places.

  She had loved it in the early days when Martin had done so well as a geologist, when he was so excited by his work. Almost twenty years later he was still a good geologist, but he was just an employee. He wasn’t really in a management position. He couldn’t stand his boss. These days it was great to be so secure in his job, she had said. They were “getting by” fine on his hundred thousand a year, but she she wanted more. Unfortunately, Martin was not making a difference anymore.

  Martin was still angry. Most women would love having a nice house and a hard-working husband. He wasn’t really surprised, though. Increasingly, Liz had been hanging with a pretty fast crowd, people with nice cars. Maybe he was just getting by. Maybe he did need to acquire that “killer instinct,” as Liz called it.

  The drive home that night had been beyond sobering. With the end drawing near—the end of everything drawing near—Martin’s thoughts were singular and unresolved. What does a man do when he learns from his wife that “getting by” just isn’t good enough any longer?

  CHAPTER 9

  It was only 8:15 a.m. and the phone was already ringing off the hook.

  “Basin Energy, Mr. Cantrell’s office. How may I help you?” She said mechanically.

  “So, can you come out and play today?” He asked.

  “My, aren’t we frisky for so early in the morning,” she said as the switchboard lit up. “I need to get the other line, baby. I’ll be back in just a second.”

  Anita would be a catch for any man. She was a handful, that was for sure. Young, attractive, divorced, she had first met Hilton almost two years ago at the NPRA Conference in San Antonio. They had both fallen into too many margaritas that night. When she saw the big, gold Rolex and the wedding band, she liked the smell of this kind of trouble. A woman had to be a hell of a lot more careful these days.

  She didn’t just get out-of-town opportunities, either. Her Mom was back in Houston watching Anita’s daughter for the weekend. Besides, Hilton looked like he had a lot to offer, so they had spent the night together. It had been good. When they got back to Houston, Hilton j
ust kept calling; first just to visit, then for a drink or lunch, and one thing just led to another. Now, whether they liked it or not, they had a relationship that could lead to just about anything.

  “Sorry, you still there?” Anita came back on the line.

  “Didn’t Marty take off to chase Bambi? I was thinking we could take a long lunch,” said Hilton.

  Anita hated it when he called Martin, “Marty.”

  “Yeah, Martin left for Wisconsin yesterday, deer hunting for almost a week.”

  “So how about I pick you up at 11 a.m.?”

  “I don’t know, maybe not today. Martin left me a stack of stuff, and the guys just gave me a bunch of slides they need for a big project they are presenting tomorrow on the Kazakhstan deal.” She understood that Basin Oil, like most other big oil companies, was doing whatever they could to gain a strategic foothold in the former Soviet Union. All it meant to her was a doubling of workload, in what used to be a pretty easy job in the exploration and production department of a major oil company. Good benefits. Nice office.

  “Come on, two hours won’t hurt. It’ll clear your head,” said Hilton enthusiastically.

  She loved it when men acted this way—women’s ultimate power in the universe.

  “Oh, okay, see you at eleven on the Ashford side of the building,” said Anita.

  “See you, baby.”

  Without looking, she hung up the phone and went back to her computer. It had been confusing when they had first gotten off the word processor. There were all kinds of passwords, commands, file, diskettes, and things. But after a few classes, she found she had a knack for it. Now she was publishing spreadsheets, word processing and even creating slide presentations for the guys, and they loved it. Before, she had always called in sick at least once every month or so, but now she really made a difference. Her group—Martin included—would give her grief for hours when she’d still try and play hooky for a day.

  Martin had been a hard one for Anita to figure out. He was smart. She found him at once attractive and intimidating. He showed her the ropes and helped her with the computer at first. There was a time when she had mistaken his engaging style and the way those clear eyes hung on her every word, as another easy mark. Later, when she got to know him better, she’d met Liz and then came to realize that Martin was the same with everyone. Even the plant lady had asked about “that very attractive man in the corner office.” She knew there was just something about Martin. Often, in bed with Hilton, she just couldn’t help thinking of Martin. But Martin was a forest too dark. There was an animal within him, and nobody had brought it out.

  Hilton had an hour before he had to pick up Anita. He scanned through on-line news, looked over his Argus oil price faxes and reviewed Prolea closing positions from the previous day. New York gasoline was down another eight basis points, but American Petroleum Institute product inventory levels were still drawing down. He had one more very important call to make.

  “New York Brokerage, Gannon speaking.”

  “Jerry, this is Hilton. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing special, Hilton. Volume is heavy. Light oils still looking for support. See Platt’s this morning?”

  “I saw it. Where do we stand?”

  “It’s not a pretty picture, Hilton, I’ll tell you that,” Jerry replied.

  “I’m a trader, not a mind reader—where do we stand?” Hilton wasn’t known for his patience.

  q”Well Hilton, “Jerry proceeded cautiously, “On paper, Prolea is out of the market $37.23 million the way it stands right now.”

  There was a long, uninterrupted silence as Hilton considered his next move. “Roll it another month,” he finally stammered.

  “Yours, Hilton? — or Prolea’s?” Asked Jerry.

  “Just Prolea’s. We can worry about what to do with mine later.”

  “Hilton, this is getting pretty big. It’s going to take me some time.”

  “Just do it,” said Hilton, and he hung up.

  The striking thing was that Hilton thought there was nothing unusual with having his own “private” trading book, along with the position he managed at Prolea—illegal, maybe, but not unusual. Traders playing their hunches or working off their company’s data would open accounts, willing to bet a hundred or two hundred thousand dollars of their own money. They were always hoping to make an extra hundred thousand here or there when they were the first to get news of a sudden Middle East skirmish or a refinery fire that would drive prices suddenly and unexpectedly down—or up, for that matter. He always said a good trader could make just as much money when the market was going down, as he could when it was going up.

  Hilton had started his own trading account almost six months earlier. He had called one morning to buy a near month futures contract for 100,000 barrels. He had chatted amicably with Jerry. At the time, Hilton’s lead futures trader was in Naples, Florida for a week at a convention and Hilton placed the order himself. Hilton and Jerry had shared perceptions on overall market conditions. It turned out they had some old mutual friends. Hilton had complained loudly about the increasing foreign influence on his decision making and how it was keeping him from making the decisions he wanted to make on every deal. They had talked openly about Hilton opening his own personal account with Jerry where he could always do exactly what he wanted, even if it differed a bit from the French influence at Prolea. It had been a good conversation. Hilton wired Jerry some money, and Jerry placed the first order. By eleven the next morning, West Texas Intermediate was up $1.30 a barrel in Cushing, and Hilton’s purchase from the day before had made $130,000 on paper.

  Jerry also made a lot of corporate transactions under Hilton’s Prolea business. Keeping the two accounts separate had been easy for Jerry—for a couple of months. Shortly before the Iraq war, Hilton was filling in for a trader again, and called Jerry to purchase 500,000 barrels of Brent oil. When all hell broke loose with the U.S. bombing of the Iraqi forces, Jerry was inundated with calls and couldn’t confirm the trade right away. When he talked to Hilton only two hours later, the 500,000 barrels of Brent oil was worth 1.3 million dollars more than he had paid for it. Jerry had booked the original order for Prolea because Hilton had indicated it was a Prolea purchase, but now Hilton said it had been for him. There had been a heated debate. Jerry had told Hilton to get somebody else for a broker; Hilton had threatened to take his business—and Prolea’s—elsewhere, if he “couldn’t trust” Jerry. When Hilton finally said he’d only ask this favor one time, Jerry thought about it for a day and then changed the paperwork, placing it all under Hilton’s personal account. Hilton put over a million dollars in his own pocket, and about a week later, Jerry got a wire from Hilton for a hundred grand. Big, sudden market moves like that don’t come along that often, but a man like Hilton was more than willing to use his power to put a million bucks in his pocket.

  That was months ago. Now Hilton was doing it often. If Hilton made a good trade, he’d take the margin and keep it in his account. If things went wrong, Prolea ate it. Lately, things had been going wrong for Hilton and Prolea. Hilton had lost two million dollars from his account in the last four months, but he was still carrying almost six hundred thousand of profits in his personal account. On fundamentals, Jerry and Hilton were both convinced that the product-fuels market just had to improve. If it did, everyone, including Prolea, would be fine. But if prices didn’t rise, even Hilton wouldn’t survive much longer at Prolea, and whoever came in would take a long and careful look at the trading records of Prolea Energy- and Jerry Gannon would be finished at the New York Mercantile Exchange.

  Hilton said, “roll it ahead a month,” so Jerry took a long draw off his Diet Coke, huddled over his computer screen in the center of the trading floor and began to enter the first order, rolling over Prolea’s problem to the next month.

  CHAPTER 10

  Martin slowly pulled the Explorer over to the curb directly across from Elmo’s Diner. Except for the uneven
crunching of yesterday’s melted snow under his feet, the town was quiet. The air was crisp and fresh. Even though the red sky of morning was beginning to stake its claim, the stars hung expectedly over Main Street, waiting to see what the day would hold. Martin listened for the telling slam of the door on his father’s side of the truck and then stood patiently waiting for him to come around the car and join him. The stark lights of the Farmer’s Co-op gas station shone silently through his breath. A passing pick-up, loaded with corn for the mill, labored by in the morning silence. With its passing, they walked stiff-legged across the street into the simple, earthy warmth of Elmo’s.

  Inside the diner, large unshaven men in wool, plaid shirts were congregated together in small circles around the beat-up tables. The high, worried walls and hand-crafted, dark oak counters vouched for the ancestors of those in the room. As the interior door slammed shut behind them, Martin and his dad drew calculating stares from all around. Martin saw several large Formica-topped tables clearly unclaimed near the back and he strode forward with assurance while his father headed for the restroom. Martin quickly pulled two tables together for their crew. He asked for two pots of coffee, black. By the time his father had returned, his brother and the rest of the deer hunting gang had arrived in two more vehicles. For twenty-two years this had been their rally point on the Friday before deer season opened.

  They quickly grew loud, and an occasional glance from the front of the place reminded them that they were not necessarily welcome. Two of the men in their group had been participating for years, and immediately went back to recounting the infamous missed shots at a trophy buck, or when he dragged out a deer in deep snow late at night, and various other stories covering the last three decades of hunting. Martin, his dad, and Martin’s brother, made up the core of the group; the other three had joined up along the way and brought their own collection of nicknames and mischief to the foray. Martin knew he could rely on any one of them, including his dad, to get him out of the deepest woods in the deepest snows, if he ever found himself in trouble. Martin sat quietly in his thoughts, and, with no conversation directed specifically toward him, the chatter faded into the background. He thought of Liz. She would be getting up about now. The girls still had school today. He wondered if she had told anyone about their discussion just three nights ago. As he warmed up by the big wood stove in the corner, he wondered again if he should have come hunting or stayed back in Houston to patch things up with Liz. He had wanted to stay, but Liz had insisted he go. Said she needed some “breathing room.” In the end, he’d only gone because staying would have meant an awkward time around the house. Liz had suggested she’d go stay with a girlfriend for a few nights, giving Martin time to look for an apartment. Finally, she’d agreed to think it over and do nothing until he got back from his hunting trip. Reluctantly, he had packed up his stuff and headed out the next day. Now he realized he was a million miles away from his wife and her thoughts.