“She’s doing fine, thank you.” I raised my glass of seltzer in mock toast. “And thanks for the invite.”
“We’ll talk,” Virgil said. He continued to circulate.
The Kid was sitting in the lounge area, paying no attention to the game or his surroundings, while catapulting Angry Birds across his iPad screen. The fact that he never got beyond the first level didn’t bother him at all. He had plugged in a pair of earbuds and was bobbing arrhythmically to the digital soundtrack. At least, I hoped that was what he was listening to. My good intentions to wipe the offending file had been overwhelmed by cowardice.
The party consisted of twelve of the firm’s big producers and their progeny — a surplus of boys ranging from Jay’s age up through a few acne-spattered early teens. There was one girl, who I guessed to be about ten, sitting in the front row and fully engrossed in the game. I realized I knew her — or knew who she was. Her mother was one of those extremely rare people in my life — an old friend.
Few of the boys were capable of matching the young girl’s focus. They talked loudly, climbed over the rows of padded seats, and only occasionally looked up at the television monitors on the wall. Their fathers huddled in groups of threes and fours, discussing golf, golf courses they had recently played, and professional golfers they had met at charity fund-raisers.
Sybil Cooper, the only woman in attendance and the mother of the young girl, was the only person, other than Virgil, I would have chosen to spend any time with. We had known each other since before my fall from grace, and she treated me as though I had never spent three years in prison. I had chosen her to handle the Kid’s sizable portfolio and she’d been doing an excellent job.
“How are you, Sybil?” We shook hands. “Don’t ask me about my golf game, please. I don’t play and with any luck I never will.”
She grinned briefly. “The day I retire I’m flying to Hawaii, where I will drop my clubs in that volcano and good riddance.”
“Ginny seems to be the only one watching the game.”
“She’s a sports nut. Like her father.”
“Ah.” The divorce had not been one of those purported to be amicable. It was more average. In other words, a freaking horror show.
“He’s here,” she said.
“Here? In New York?”
She looked haunted. “Here, as in at the stadium. He’s a weekend stalker. Ginny told him we were coming East, so he had to come too.”
I knew something about exes and bad divorces. “That’s a little over the top.”
“He’s relentless. I have a restraining order against him in California, but he says it’s invalid here. I don’t know. I can’t compete,” she said, “so I don’t try. How long do these things last, anyway?”
“You could be here for three hours. Four, maybe.”
“God give me strength.”
“The Kid’s here,” I said gesturing with a slight nod of my head. He did not like to be pointed out.
“My favorite client. How is he?”
I thought for a moment before answering. “He is a challenge. And I need that.”
Sybil noticed a florid-faced man approaching. “I need a glass of wine,” she said, brushing past him with a stiff smile.
“You used to have a house out East.” Dean “Dean-o” Harris enjoyed pulling obscure memories out of the air, like a magician releasing doves. I knew his secret. He kept files on his smartphone. “Where did you play? Shinnecock Hills? Sebonack?” This may have been a subtle dig, if Dean-o had been capable of anything subtle in his life, as the courses he mentioned did not cater to mere mortals. The line on the membership application for net worth had ten spaces, and you were expected to use them all. Millionaires and Lotto Winners Need Not Apply.
“I never played the game,” I said. “I guess I was always too busy working.”
Dean laughed. It was a good belly laugh, only partially fueled by the beaker of Bombay Sapphire in his right paw. “You’ve got it all backwards, Jason. The golf course is where all the serious money is made.”
“So I’ve been told.”
He drifted off, no doubt to harass some other unfortunate. Sybil saw him coming and insinuated herself into a clutch of men by the bar.
The Yankees scored and the game came to a halt as Toronto called for a relief pitcher. I sat with the Kid for a few minutes, watching over his shoulder as he battled the video game, until I heard him grinding his teeth. I was stressing him. Hovering. He would begin to growl soon. I got up and fixed myself a sandwich from the mounds of cold cuts provided.
My mouth was full of smoked turkey, gouda, brown mustard, and ciabatta when Virgil swung around again.
“Have you seen anything interesting?” he asked.
Sybil trying to avoid Dean-o didn’t qualify. Most men and all women would have done the same. I shook my head rather than try to talk around the sandwich.
He sipped the beer he was holding and grimaced. Virgil was working hard at being “one of the guys,” but he wasn’t a beer drinker. “Monday morning I meet with the analysts to give them a briefing on third-quarter results, which are due out in another two weeks. I can’t afford to be blindsided by fraud revelations while I’m trying to demonstrate that the firm is finally back on track.”
“Still, you won’t share any hints?” I managed to swallow before asking.
“If you don’t see it, there’s nothing there.” He was gone again, pressing flesh, and fixing eyes with an intensity that made you believe that every word that came from your lips was gospel and he a mere disciple. It was a skill, probably taught in elite prep schools. For all I knew it was heartfelt — the real Virgil Becker. But if it was an act, it was a very good one. Virgil could charm the devil if there was money to be made.
His unspoken message to me, however, was clear. He sensed a problem, but needed my skill set to back up his suspicions. Forcing me to look in any one direction would create a bias he could not afford.
I topped up my seltzer and took my sandwich to the far side of the lounge where there was an unoccupied couch and coffee table and an unobstructed view of the room. And it was a remove from the rambunctious kids and their backslapping fathers. I took my time finishing my lunch and kept watch.
Not much happened. The men drank too much and the noise level increased. There was more laughter. The groups were fluid, as the traders and salesmen drifted back and forth.
The Kid looked up from his game and caught me watching. For a rare moment our eyes met. Somehow I knew that he saw what I was doing and understood. Dad’s working. His eyelids fluttered briefly and he went back to tossing birds.
I watched some more, wishing that I was watching the game instead. I checked the scoreboard occasionally. Yanks were up four. When had that happened? I was wasting my time watching overpaid people consume free food and drink.
Then I saw it. The swirling cocktail party revealed a minor mystery. The pattern repeated. I’d been wrong. A few minutes later when Virgil next looked in my direction I smiled. Grimly. We met at the bar.
“Yes?”
“Harris and Sybil Cooper,” I said.
“Aaaahh.” He was torn, glad that I had identified the problem, and disappointed that there was more than his imaginings here.
“I thought Harris was just being a pest — as per usual. But it’s bigger than that. There’s serious bad blood there.”
Dean Harris and Sybil Cooper were two of the lions in distressed debt. Failed or failing companies. Beyond junk bonds. Harris worked out of New York and Sybil in L.A. but they worked the same side of the street and spoke daily. Harris was paunchy, red-faced, and always on stage. An entertainer, much beloved by his clients. Sybil was a cold, thin brunette who rarely smiled, but held doctorates in both mathematics and economics. She was impatient, strongly opinionated, and usually right. Her clients didn’t love her, but they all wanted to hear what she had to say. She was the only woman there and was used to it.