Perkins glanced at it and lowered his head. When he looked up, Marx could see that his eyes were moist, not quite tears.
“I really liked Howard. You know, he didn’t want to do your job anymore. He wanted to stop. He told me that the last time I saw him. He asked me if he could have a real job at Alphabet Capital, instead of a fake job.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said he would be bored. I told him that all we did at Alphabet Capital was make money.”
Perkins’s car and driver were waiting outside. He invited her to come back to his townhouse in Ennismore Gardens for a nightcap, or visit Annabel’s in Berkeley Square. She was tempted, even though she had just flown across the ocean and knew for a certainty that it was a bad idea. She said she would take a rain check.
Perkins insisted on driving her to her hotel. It was an old pile near Marble Arch that had been remodeled by an American hotel chain. Its virtue for Marx was that it wouldn’t bust her per diem. Perkins feigned shock when the driver opened the door at this most ordinary address.
“This won’t do. Not for you. Tell your boss that I won’t talk to you anymore unless you move to someplace more appropriate. This place is insecure: Nobody working for me in real life would ever stay here. It’s a dead giveaway. I suggest the Dorchester. It’s near my office, and it’s where you would stay.”
She moved to the Dorchester first thing the next morning. They gave her a grand room overlooking Hyde Park. Mr. Perkins had called ahead.
20
The trading room at Alphabet Capital was a hedgerow of computer screens, two and sometimes three to a desk. It wasn’t a tidy office. Nobody on the floor wore a tie, one man was dressed in shorts and sandals, and several of the men had ponytails longer than Sophie Marx’s. It didn’t matter what you looked like, evidently, so long as you made money. There were a lot of Asian faces on the trading floor, many Indians and some Pakistanis, it appeared. That was a worry now.
Marx arrived at nine-thirty dressed in a blue suit and a white blouse, much too sensible an outfit for the trading floor. Perkins’s secretary, whose name was Mona, walked her over to see the director of Human Resources. He found her a desk at the far end of the floor where the analysts sat. It had just one computer screen. The morning was spent in tutorials on the Bloomberg Terminal.
Perkins sent out a system-wide message in midmorning asking everyone to gather on the trading floor. He emerged from his office in shirtsleeves, head bowed. It was obvious to everyone that something bad had happened.
Perkins said he had just received a call from the U.S. consulate in Karachi. Howard Egan, their missing colleague, was dead. He had fallen during a trek in the mountains near Karachi, and the Pakistanis had finally discovered his body. He read the police statement. He said that Egan’s remains would be returned to the States, where the family would hold a memorial service. He was about to head back into his office, somber business done, but he stopped and turned toward the dozens of employees, most of whom had known the deceased only slightly, if at all.
“Howard Egan was a decent man; much too nice for our business. He loved his work. He was a risk-taker, always. In this case, he took a bigger risk than he could handle.”
He paused for a time, looking at the floor, as if he were going to say more. But the words didn’t come, and he turned abruptly and retreated to his Bloomberg screens.
They stood there for a moment, trying to take in the news. Someone in the back said, “Hear, hear,” as if Perkins had given a toast rather than a eulogy. People slowly dispersed back to their desks to begin once more the roar of trading, which didn’t take a break for anyone.
Shortly after his little speech, Perkins called Sophie Marx in the HR training room and invited her to lunch. He proposed to meet her at a restaurant called L’Oranger in St. James’s Street at one. That sounded reasonably discreet, so she said yes.
She felt mildly guilty about having a good time in London when her colleagues were in danger, so she emailed Gertz telling him that everything was going according to plan and that she hoped to have some answers for him soon. Gertz responded promptly. She wondered why he was still up; it was nearly three a.m. in Los Angeles. He told her to go someplace where she wouldn’t be overheard, so he could call her cell phone.
“Perkins likes you.” That was the first thing he said. She wasn’t sure from his tone whether he was pleased about it. She asked how he knew that so quickly, and he explained that Perkins had messaged his agency contact, Anthony Cronin, and that Cronin had told him.
“We have a delicate relationship with this guy,” Gertz continued. “I’m glad he’s opening the door, but be careful. This is a china shop. You touch the stuff and you’re going to break some of it. And then you’re screwed. We’re all screwed. So walk softly. Be professional. And don’t take too much frigging time. I need something to give to Headquarters soon, or we’re all going to be sitting on the crapper full-time.”
“How much time do I have?”
“A week, two weeks at the outside.”
“That may not be enough. This is complicated. And if I find a lead, I’m going to need to follow it. Don’t you think?”
“Sure, sure. Just get it done in two weeks. I’ve told Cyril Hoffman that you’re working on this. You, personally. You know what that means?”
“That it’s my ass.”
“Precisely.” He told her to have fun in London, and not to run up too big a bill at the Dorchester. Apparently Perkins had confided that to Anthony Cronin, as well.
The restaurant was deep in Clubland, at the corner of St. James’s and Pall Mall. Marx took a taxi, hoping to get there first, but when she arrived, she saw Perkins’s car idling outside. He was nestled against the banquette, reading the latest trading report as he did habitually, wherever he was. The entirety of the fund’s life seemed to be summarized by those numbers: What positions it had taken that morning, which ones it had sold. He put the market manifest aside when she sat down. She pointed to it and asked him why he found it so riveting.
“Trading is a narrative,” he said. “You can describe it on this piece of paper, but it’s more like a book. One part of the story is connected to all the rest. Right now we think the European Central Bank is going to start tightening again at the next meeting, which means Eurozone interest rates will go up. So we’re buying euros and selling European equities. As the euro gets stronger against the dollar, oil prices will go up a bit, so we’re buying oils. But if the dollar is off, that’s good for U.S. exporters, so we’re increasing our position in some large-cap U.S. equities, too.”
As he talked, he pointed to the trades that morning that had been driven by the “narrative,” as he’d put it. She tried to follow along, and occasionally nodded as if she understood what he was talking about. But most of the markings on the sheet just looked like very big numbers and she didn’t follow the trading logic, up or down.
“Let’s go back to the start,” she said. “How do you know the European Central Bank will start tightening at its next meeting?”
He smiled sheepishly, and she thought at first that she had asked a dumb question. But it wasn’t.
“That’s the secret sauce,” he said. “I can’t explain that. It’s how we make our money. When you know things, the bets aren’t so risky. Otherwise, it’s just a casino. If I wanted to gamble, I could do that in Las Vegas, without hiring all these people.”
They ordered lunch, and it was delicious, of course. This man only seemed to eat good food and drink the best wines. In this case, it meant pumpkin soup with cognac, served with chicken livers on toast, followed by a navarin of lamb. She waved off the sommelier, but Perkins said that it would be criminal to have the lamb without a glass of Margaux, so she relented.