Jordan, no fan of heights, had developed a method for dealing with the floor: From the moment the door swung open, he stared Stack straight in the eyes and never looked away. In the early days, Stack had observed this and, surprisingly, had responded by turning the floor as dark as onyx whenever Jordan arrived. It was a subject of debate on Jordan’s desk whether Stack had done this out of respect for Jordan’s trading prowess, or, as Jordan suspected, because Stack had liked him. In any case, in recent months, as Jordan’s market wizardry had faded, Stack had dispensed with this gesture and now left the floor as clear as glass.
“Sorry to bother you, Alan,” Jordan said. “We have a problem.”
Stack nodded. The back wall of the office, the one behind Jordan, held six enormous screens, allowing Stack to monitor every trading position in the firm.
“The rumors in New York are that the Ministry has voted to maintain its current stance,” Jordan continued. “But I think the rumors are wrong.”
“Any new information?” Stack asked.
“Just some b.s. fed to the wires,” Jordan said.
“Who’s on the other side?”
“Draco, I think,” Jordan answered, referring to a massive New York hedge fund. “Most of the wire quotes came from their shills.”
Stack nodded again, almost imperceptibly.
The meeting was over. A hundred and fifty million was real money, even for Stack. If Jordan took the loss, it would hit Stack too. And yet, as always, he had reacted as though receiving a weather report.
Back on the trading floor, Fishman stood up when Jordan approached, so agitated that he seemed about to shout across the floor.
“We’re down two hundred now,” Fishman hissed, as Jordan slid back his chair. “Two hundred fucking million.”
“You’d be a terrible poker player, Fishman,” Jordan said, trying to maintain a Stacklike demeanor. Despite his efforts, the number was a kick in the chest. They were now down for the year. He was going to get blown out the door.
Fishman shut up, thankfully, but the market didn’t stop falling. Ten minutes later, they were down $240 million. Then 280. Word spreads fast on a trading floor, and Jordan’s conviction that he was getting famous increased with every downtick. The glances, the murmurs... Finally, ten minutes after Jordan returned from Stack’s office, a light on his phone flashed: Stack. Jordan stabbed at the button.
“Double it,” Stack said. Then he was gone.
Double it? Jordan’s heart raced. The loss was huge now, even for Stack, but it wouldn’t kill him. Stack could take the hit, fire Jordan, cover his ass. Double it? No matter who Stack had called, no matter what he had learned, nothing was certain. It was no mystery why Stack sat in that translucent office and Jordan in a dime-a-dozen swivel chair.
Jordan turned to Fishman, who looked like the defendant in a murder trial.
“Double it,” Jordan said.
“Are you crazy? Stack said double it?”
“I said double it,” Jordan said. So Fishman did.
It wasn’t a baijiu headache, fortunately, but three hours of sake at the Japanese-themed year-end banquet had gone to work on Jordan’s head: a pinpoint throbbing pain, gradually increasing in intensity, just forward of his right ear. The waiters were pouring tea now, offering hope of a recharge, and Jordan knew he would need it to get in a final word. Fifty feet away, at the power table, Stack was still joined at the hip with Reingold and Zhu.
“Rumor has it Reingold’s mainly here to kiss Stack’s ass,” Fishman said, catching Jordan looking, referring to Steve Reingold, the head of Global Sales and Training. “Apparently he’s no longer the shoe-in for the CEO job.”
“Oh?” Jordan said. Fishman’s main attribute was that he was plugged in.
“Apparently, Beston seduced a couple of the board members over the past month,” Fishman continued. “He’s tight with Stack. The board is worried that if they pick Reingold, Stack will bolt, taking most of us with him. Reingold’s probably here to suck up to Stack, make sure he can keep him.”
“I thought Reingold had it sewn up,” Jordan said, feigning ignorance.
“So did everyone else,” Fishman replied. “But Beston crushed his numbers this year, and now he’s persuaded everyone he can hang onto Stack.”
“May the best man win,” Jordan said.
“And may we all get paid in the meantime,” Fishman added.
Fishman grabbed the sake bottle and, for the umpteenth time that evening, refilled everyone’s cup. Then he stood up and raised his own. “The night is as yet an embryo,” he proclaimed to the four junior members of the desk, trying to channel some frat lingo in a sad attempt to bond with them. “But before we move on, I would like once again to toast our fearless leader, Mr. Emerson Jordan, without whom we would all be living in hutongs.”
“To Emerson!” they shouted.
Jordan nodded his head in gratitude, embarrassed, hoping Fishman would leave it at that. But Fishman had been working up to this all evening.
“Those of you in fixed-income land,” he continued, louder, nodding toward six members of the emerging-market bond desk at the other end of the table, “may not be aware of the absolute killing that was made on the forex desk this afternoon. And to be sure that you show the proper deference to the god among men in our presence this evening, I would like to—”
“Thanks, Fishman,” Jordan interrupted, raising his own glass. “What Mr. Fishman means is that, once again, the Shanghai team at Whitney Gilman wiped the floor with every other division at the firm, and we should all drink to that.”
“To Shanghai!” ten of the twelve voices at the table concurred. They drained their glasses, set them back on the table. Then an eleventh voice, previously silent, chimed in.
“What I heard,” Joseph Wilson said, from the other end of the table, audible even over the cacophonous conversation of the banquet hall, “was that our resident ‘god among men’ got himself in a bit of a fix this afternoon.”
In the instant silence, Jordan looked down the table at Wilson, who was still holding a full cup. Jordan felt a stab of humiliation, and hoped Wilson wouldn’t take it farther.
Wilson was drunk, drunker than Jordan, drunker than most of them. His desk had had a bad year — the second in a row — and everyone knew that unless Stack made him a charity case, Wilson was done. That was why Wilson’s people were whooping at Fishman’s lousy jokes — they needed a lifeboat. Tomorrow, when Jordan’s team was getting their numbers, Wilson would be packing up the wife and kids and heading back to New York.
Making a scene now would only add to Wilson’s disgrace: a bitter has-been hastening his transformation into a never-was. Jordan wasn’t eager to hear the rest of whatever Wilson had to say, though — no doubt something to the effect that Jordan was just an empty-suited puppet on Stack’s string — and he especially wasn’t eager to have his team hear it. He stared at Wilson, readying himself for the verbal punch. After a few seconds, however, Wilson backed down.
“To Whitney Gilman,” he said, raising his cup into the air. “And to the forex desk, for riding out the storm.”
“To Whitney Gilman!” the table roared, in enthusiasm and relief.
A few minutes later, after chugging a cup of tea, Jordan made his move. He had hoped to catch Stack alone, but Stack was still glued to Reingold and Zhu. The banquet was over, the crowd was dissipating, and the three were now standing at the head table, waiting to follow everyone else to the door. Jordan worked his way across the room, as confidently and soberly — as possible.