“It’s difficult.”
Ms. Blue and Mr. Sneed were suspecting they had wasted two glasses of domestic bar wine on a loser. Their fault. I had been loitering near their table, flipping brochures and looking thirsty, half listening to the drone from the conference room, when I noticed Ms. Blue. She had the kind of short, rusty-blonde hair that wants to be tousled. A nice round face with eyes and lips in agreeable places. She spoke with a little accent that I couldn’t place. My name tag said HI, I’M DON McCARTHY. That didn’t impress her. Neither did my appearance: buck-toothed, squinty-eyed, sunken-chested, with hair growing out of my nose — reliably described by my most recent ex-wife. The next line on the name tag identified my employer as Magee & Temple, which made sunken-chested sort of cute. Magee & Temple was as close to a white-shoe brokerage firm as you could still find on the foot of Manhattan. We didn’t bother with clients who had to drive their own Bentleys.
She responded appropriately.
Thirty seconds into our chat — while I was thinking there could be a future, or at least an afternoon, for me and Wendy Blue — Sneed arrived at the table, all three hundred pounds of him, a breathless middle-aged bear fattened up for the economic winter. She must have buzzed and he’d come running.
We walked around a couple of corners, and since it was a nice hotel we found the bar. All fiat currencies were doomed, Sneed confided, trusting that I knew a fiat currency was one made of paper. “Inflation could wipe out everything your clients have,” he warned. “Their only real hope lies in owning gold.”
Now I had a fuller picture: freeze-dried food, antibiotics, log cabins, high-powered rifles, and gold.
Sneed and Ms. Blue were mentally packing up their log home when a voice behind me said, “Yo, mate,” and a hand slapped my shoulder. “What’s this about getting wiped out?”
He wasn’t my typical client: twenty-something, spiked black hair, sallow complexion, a mouth full of good teeth, and dumb jargon he’d picked up from late-night movies. But Imre de Wohl was my favorite kind of client. Two months ago, he’d shown up with a reference from a Shanghai bank, asked a few simple-minded questions about software stocks, and wired a few million into his new account the same afternoon. What wasn’t to love, especially the simple-minded part? The first wire came from the Shanghai bank, the next from Israel, then a chunk from Paris. I got the feeling he was tapping pocket change.
I’d dragged him along to the conference to have an excuse for being here myself. Imre had sat rapt through this afternoon’s talks while I played mental Sudoku.
Sneed focused on Imre and asked, “Do you want to be part of the eighty-four percent who perish, lad?”
“Eighty-four percent?”
Sneed bent into it. “Could be well over ninety percent. A veritable human die-off. I was explaining to Mr. McCarthy—”
Imre dropped onto the sofa next to Ms. Blue, who moved a knee close to his. She was probably about thirty but willing to rob a cradle for her boss. Imre said, “A ninety percent die-off? So we’re dinosaurs.”
“Not at all, my boy! Dinosaurs took fate as it came. Thinking men and women take steps.” Sneed’s heavy eyebrows rose above his glasses. “In fact, the culling of the human herd might be a blessing. The survivors will be the brightest among us. The biological heritage they pass along will bring a new dawn for mankind — for those of us who are around to enjoy it.” I was impressed at his delivery: apocalypse and eugenics in one breath. Sneed poked a finger at Imre. “Having gold to buy things with might make the difference.”
“Radical,” Imre said. “I could use some gold.”
“Well, as it happens—”
Imre’s cell phone went off, and he “yeah-yeahed” his way off the sofa and was gone before Sneed could exhale.
“He’s got a short attention span,” I explained.
When Sneed ran off to grab other prospects in the men’s room, I asked Ms. Blue, “How long have you worked for him?”
“Eight months.”
“Getting rich?”
“Getting by. Something else will come along.”
As long as she wore the sea-green contacts and snug jacket, she could bank on it.
“Are you staying at the Plaza?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Want to have dinner?”
“No.”
“Breakfast?”
“Get lost, Mr. McCarthy.”
Definitely clever.
Sneed came back from the bathroom, sized me up, and said, “Mr. McCarthy, you have the look of a man who appreciates candor. What do you think, Ms. Blue?”
“I think he’s a loser.”
“I can offer you ten-percent commission for referrals,” Sneed told me, looking hopeful.
“If I don’t refer them, I get a hundred percent,” I pointed out.
Hope turned to dejection. The conference was breaking up, and he hurried off to inject himself into conversations at the bar.
“Business is slow?” I asked Ms. Blue.
“It’s very competitive.”
“Not enough suckers to go around?”
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?”
I bought the next round of drinks. Ms Blue went for a Campari and soda. “We had a pretty good business eight months ago, which is why I signed up,” she said.
“What happened?”
“The idea of buying log homes and gold was edgy. After a couple of bank failures, now it’s commonplace. Darwin is worried.”
“Are you close to jumping ship?”
“I’d like to find something to jump to first.”
“What did you do before this?”
“Danced in Las Vegas.”
I tried to picture her wearing a couple of feathers and sequins. “If you’re tired of working for Sneed,” I said, “I can always use an executive assistant. Pay’s good. You still get to tell lies.”
“And the perks?”
“The main one is I don’t weigh three hundred pounds.”
She smiled faintly. “I’ll think about it.”
“Have you changed your mind about dinner?”
This time she didn’t tell me to get lost. Instead she handed me a business card. “Call me at seven. I’ll know then if I have to accompany Darwin somewhere.”
I started to get up, then sat back down. “About gold,” I said. “How would I buy gold from you and Sneed?”
“You’d write a check that didn’t bounce.” Sassy girl.
“And then?”
“We hold the metal abroad for our investors. What would you say is the safest country to keep money in?”
“Switzerland?”
“Not so much anymore. We prefer Singapore and the Cayman Islands. No matter how bad the upheaval here becomes, your gold will be safe in our insured vaults.”
“And there’s not much record?”
“You’re a quick study, Mr. McCarthy. Our clients’ gold is practically invisible to prying eyes.”
“Including the IRS?”
“Exactly. We’re very discreet.”
I don’t trust people who say “exactly” — as she had done, though only once — because imprecision is part of the stockbroker’s art. The dowager client asks, “Will we make money on this stock?” and I reply, “Almost certainly.” If she doesn’t read the fine print, she doesn’t know that the “almost” covers exceptions from sunspots to slick sidewalks. It’s an uncertain world.
I told Ms. Blue I would call her at seven.
They had a suite on the ninth floor, the people who had me by the short hairs and liked to describe themselves as “the good guys” — set apart from private citizens who failed to pay taxes and were therefore “bad guys.” When he opened the door, Roger Varick was on the phone with someone and motioned me in, shouldering the door closed behind us. The suite held two other agents, young men with polished shoes and white collars that could get them mistaken for missionaries. From dealings with Varick, I knew they would loot the courtesy bar and blame it on the maid.