As he strode across the park toward Mayfair, Perkins appeared as a solitary figure, not one of the commodores of finance. Such men are driven by chauffeurs; they do not walk. And when they do venture out, they are accompanied by bodyguards and bag holders-the small army of retainers that exists to minimize contact between the very rich and real life. But in this respect, as in others, Perkins was a somewhat different package.
Thomas Perkins was a tidy man in his early fifties, with small round-rimmed glasses and a thatch of blond hair. He looked boyish; people had been saying that about him ever since he actually was a boy, and it was one of his advantages: It’s easy to underestimate someone who seems unmarked by life, to assume that he can’t know the same things as people who have visibly lived and suffered.
He was used to being the smartest person in the room, and that sometimes made his boyishness oppressive. Even when he wasn’t talking, his eyes darted from speaker to speaker, or to a BlackBerry or computer screen. When doing business, which was nearly always, he would rarely smile or frown. On very rare occasions, when something had especially caught his fancy, you might hear a burst of staccato laughter, ha-ha-ha, followed by a wry comment or question, or, simply, a return to silence.
His lawyer, Vincent Tarullo, had once told him that he looked like Mr. Peabody, the talking dog on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Mr. Peabody always knew the answer to everything. Tarullo addressed him by that name even when they were in company, to the point that some people in his Washington law firm actually thought that Peabody was the client’s name.
Perkins had another nickname, one that said more about his business life: In the London hedge-fund world he was known as “Pacman” because of his skill in gobbling up assets. The name stuck: Thomas Perkins was the motorized mouth, powering through the maze of finance and eating all the dots in sight, until there weren’t any more and he got to start on a fresh screen. He had enemies among his competitors-how could anyone that successful avoid it? But even among the people who tried to follow his trading strategies, Perkins remained mysterious.
Perkins made his way across the Hyde Park meadow, his head down and his thin body in a walk that was almost a run. He walked to work most days from the townhouse in Knightsbridge to his office in Mayfair, and he regarded the park as his front yard. The daffodils that a few weeks ago had displayed a dozen shades of yellow were now mostly wilted and gone. A few tulips were still in bloom, plush lips of color atop their narrow stalks. Even in June, the morning chill left the grass wet so that it matted under Perkins’s feet.
Mayfair made the pursuit of money seem like the only rational calling in life. This tiny area, bounded by Park Lane, Piccadilly, Regent Street and Oxford Street, was home to many of London’s big hedge funds; it was the place where the world’s most talented financial minds had come to make fortunes of a size that could not have been imagined even in the heyday of the British Empire when this district had become fashionable.
Perkins halted at Stanhope Gate. He studied his BlackBerry for the Asian trading news as he waited for the light to change, and then crossed Park Lane and walked into Curzon Street.
This was his favorite part of the journey, watching this little village come awake each morning-the clubs and clothiers, the restaurants and art galleries. It was a ballet of money, choreographed anew each morning. A few refuse trucks were still out in the early morning light, collecting the trading-room litter from the previous day. Some of these lowly trash men were said to be running little businesses of their own, selling hedge-fund secrets to hungry operators who want to slipstream behind the big boys’ trades.
Perkins turned right on Stratton Street, and entered a modern building in Mayfair Place. He took the elevator to the top floor, which belonged to Alphabet Capital. At the far end was Perkins’s office, with an expanse of windows that looked out across Piccadilly to the Ritz Hotel and, beyond that, to Green Park and, in the far distance, Buckingham Palace.
Perkins opened the main door. It was just past seven, and he had expected that he would find the office empty. But in a far corner of the trading floor, bathed in shadow, Perkins could see one of the young traders who followed the Asian markets. Perkins called out hello and heard a wheezy answer from the trading desk.
Perkins disappeared into his vast office. There was a three-leafed desk, framed by computer screens as big as television monitors. There was a squawk box directly in front of where Perkins sat, with buttons for each of his main traders, so that he could give orders instantly when he saw opportunities in the markets.
Under Perkins’s desk, concealed behind a mahogany panel, was a safe. Perkins opened it and removed a tray of documents. Several of the documents bore the name of Howard Egan. Others were from accountants, auditors and lawyers. Perkins gathered them all and took them to the shredder. He ran the contents through once, and then passed the shreds a second time until they were confetti. He went to another safe, secreted in the private locker room behind his office, and removed another sheaf of documents. These, too, were shredded to dust.
Then Perkins picked up the telephone and called his private attorney, Vincent Tarullo, at home in Washington. Tarullo was a former prosecutor at the Justice Department and had run its National Security Section. He had seen almost every kind of trouble a person could get into.
“Sorry to wake you, Vince,” he said into the phone.
“No problem. I was just jerking off. That’s you, Mr. Peabody, I presume?”
“ Moi-meme. ”
“Why are you at work so early?”
“I have a little problem,” said Perkins. “Something I never told you about.”
“Swell. I always like it when you go solo and exercise poor judgment. It gives me something to clean up.”
“Don’t try to be funny, Vince. This is not the moment. I have a man who has gone missing in Pakistan. His name is Howard Egan. E-G-A-N. He seems to have been kidnapped. I am going to put out a statement today here in London.”
“Why was he kidnapped, for chrissakes? And what was he doing in Pakistan? Does he really work for you?”
“Well, that’s the thing. This particular gentleman did a bit of moonlighting.”
“For whom?”
“You can guess, surely. Let us say that these people were not unknown to you in your former line of work.”
“Oh, Christ. You really are an asshole. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Complicated question. Simple answer: I wasn’t allowed to. Anyway, I didn’t, and that’s that. They want me to put out a statement and sit tight and wait for the whole thing to blow over. Does that make sense to you?”
“I don’t know. Do you have any other choice?”
“No. I want you to do something for me this morning. Call your old friends. Not the little guys, but the very biggest one you know, and tell him that I am assuming people will keep a lid on this. Tell him that if they don’t, the consequences will be extremely serious, for everybody. Ooga-booga. Scare them. You know how to do that.”
“Will they know what I’m talking about?” asked the lawyer.
“I rather think so. This is a little, um, difficult for them.”
“Are you going to tell me about this, Peabody? Because I think you should. I can fly over tonight. You need help.”
“Not now. Maybe I’ll tell you later. Right now it’s awkward. You would ask questions that I wouldn’t be able to answer.”
“Hey, level with me, my friend. Are you fucked up here?”
“No. I am the opposite of fucked up, whatever that is. I am just dandy. So long as everyone adheres to their bargains. Then I am fine. That’s all I really need you to worry about-that the dikes and levies are secure, and the floodwaters can be contained.”