Gold (6 page)

“There’s not much in the papers,” she said.

Halden grunted. A three-line banner headline in the Times and reams of reporting that had pushed everything else off the front page but, yes, not really much in it for them.

“The market started to move even before the WCN flash,” Carol continued. She had talked at length with the trading department in preparing her chronology. “We’re trying to track it down. London, obviously, but there may be a Middle East connection.”

Halden reflected a moment. “Do you know the WCN people?” he asked the economist.

“It’s a professional operation. They get the most out of what resources are allotted to them,” Carol answered. “It’s SBC, and you know their reputation for running a tight ship. The man in London responsible for the story is their managing editor, an Andrew Dumesnil.” As usual, Carol had done her research.

Hearing the journalist’s name, Halden recalled a tall young man, thoughtful-looking, well dressed for a reporter. “I think I’ve run across him someplace. Was he with the FT before?”

Carol shrugged. “He’s been in this job three years.”

Halden paid attention to journalists. He made a point of stopping to talk with them when they chased him coming out of conferences. He would even sit with them in the bar of the Hotel Euler on those occasions when he went to the monthly BIS meetings in Basel. They sometimes had interesting gossip about his counterparts in Europe.

Halden had a vague recollection of Dumesnil. It must have been during the older man’s brief stint at Treasury, as assistant secretary for international affairs. That post was almost a sine qua non to get anywhere in the Fed nowadays; more evidence of how tightly knit world finance had become.

He always seemed to be going to Paris in those days. It was a favorite venue for the regular meetings of the so-called deputies of the Group of Ten countries, the number twos from the finance ministries and central banks of the ten largest industrial countries. There were the meetings of the Paris Club, where the same group of governments rescheduled their bilateral loans to Third World countries; the ministerial meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which was headquartered in Paris; the Fontainebleau summit. The city’s luxury hotels, three-star restaurants, and passion for divertissement exerted an apparently irresistible attraction for the men who managed the world’s money.

They were not personally wealthy, these men, but they controlled countless billions of official reserves and had the responsibility in the end for all the money in the world. A little foie gras, champagne, and a discreet visit to the Crazy Horse Saloon certainly was not too much to ask under those circumstances.

Halden was no pinchpenny—his family had money, in fact. But he had wondered at times whether so many meetings were really necessary.

He recalled Dumesnil now. An American working for the Financial Times, the legendary British business paper printed on pink stock. Halden would often hold a background briefing at the modest quarters of the U.S. delegation to the OECD in rue Franqueville, a more neutral location than the embassy on avenue Gabriel. Dumesnil would always attend, hanging back a bit, letting others get their questions in first. Then he would pinpoint an issue with a question that seemed obvious once he asked it, but that no one else had thought of. It was quite a talent. Halden wondered if he was always that good.

“We’ll have to find out where they got the news from,” he said aloud. Carol only nodded; as usual, she had anticipated Halden’s curiosity. “I’ve got a call in to the Bank of England’s press people. We’ll have some more information about WCN and Dumesnil as soon as they get back from lunch.”

Halden looked at Carol and nodded with a smile. “All right, then, let’s get down to the dealing room and see if we can get things sorted out.”

~

Carol walked up to her third-floor apartment. No doorman or elevator for her. And the apartment was small, one bedroom, scarcely six hundred square feet. She made a good salary at the Fed, but Gramercy Park was expensive.

She patiently found the keys for all three locks. Less patiently, Tiger began reprimanding her for arriving home late once again. She deposited the bulging briefcase—the real kind that lawyers use—in the hallway and attended first to the cat.

Then she poured herself a glass of white Zinfandel and went into the darkened living room, sinking into the sofa and kicking off her shoes. She sat in semidarkness, with only the light from the kitchen, separated from the living room by a high bar.

Carol sipped her wine, waiting for the mental numbness to pass. She realized she was exhausted but did not think about it. She never thought about it; she only thought about what she wanted to do.

She had always known what she wanted to do. But she never thought much about why.

Back in high school, in Plainview, New Jersey, she already had set her goals. When other pretty girls—Carol always knew she was pretty—had become cheerleaders or drum majorettes, Carol had studied, studied hard. She achieved the highest grade point in her class, became valedictorian, and won a scholarship to Princeton. Again, she studied hard, graduating magna cum laude in economics.

Then came Columbia, the master’s degree in International Affairs and the doctorate. Banks had begun scouring the Ivy League graduate schools for bright young men and women to spearhead their burgeoning international business. Carol had been invited to four second interviews, and some heady salary figures had been waved at her.

But she didn’t hesitate in choosing the Fed. She knew it was drone work, compiling and analyzing dry statistics. Not the glamour of jet planes, exotic capitals, and luxury hotels that lured so many of her classmates into banking, not even the promise of six-digit salaries that enticed others into Wall Street. She wanted to be at the center of power, and the Fed was the center of power.

Then there was Rick. They had been at Princeton together. He went to Columbia Law School. He took a job with a big corporate law firm. They got married.

It had been easy, easier even than not getting married. And it had worked out fine. She liked Rick. Their relationship in bed was uneven, but Rick was bright and appreciated what she was doing.

They had friends, many, like themselves, professional couples. They had less and less time for these friends as work made increasing demands. Then they had less and less time for each other. Then Rick wanted children.

Carol said no.

She would never forget the confrontation in the kitchen. It was a sultry July night. The apartment on Central Park West was air-conditioned, but the unrelenting heat and humidity of a Manhattan summer had put everyone on edge. Rick was already upset that they were not in the Hamptons. An emergency at the Fed had sabotaged their plans for a long weekend with two other couples.

Carol had pleaded with Rick to go without her, but he was too proud to be odd man out.

By Sunday night Carol still had several thick files spread out over the kitchen table. The large apartment had a study, but that belonged by silent consent to Rick.

Rick stood in the kitchen door. He had been fidgeting all day long.

“Any ideas for supper?”

Carol, immersed in the intricacies of an adjustment in the European currency snake, did not look up. “I’m not very hungry right now,” she said, preoccupied.

“You know, in most households in this country, the woman takes care of meals,” Rick said in even, exasperated tones.

Carol looked up, concentrated on what he was saying a moment, and then laughed in a quick burst. “Rick,” she chided, “your liberal mask is slipping.”

He turned abruptly away from the door.

“Look, if you’re hungry, why don’t you just run down to Antonio’s and get a pizza?” she called after him.

“And if I’m bored, and if I’m lonely?” He was at the door again.

A look of mock concern came into Carol’s face. “Oh, poor baby, feeling ignored.” The air grew very tense. Carol tried to defuse the situation. “Come on, Rick, the Europeans don’t throw the currency markets into an uproar every weekend. I’ve got work to do.”

“What would they do if you were on maternity leave?”

“I’m not, and”—she leered at him—”as you of all people know, there’s no imminent danger of that.”

“It’s not my fault we’re having problems; you should know that. It’s this thing about having children.”

Carol took off the glasses she wore when she had to read a lot of photocopied documents.

“We’ve spent many hours discussing this, Rick, and we’ll spend many more, but now is not the time.”

Rick came over very deliberately to the table, turned a chair around, and straddled it, holding the chairback like a shield between them.

“We have to resolve this thing. What the hell are we doing together, man and wife, if we can’t talk about having fucking children? We’ve been married for six years.”

Carol looked at him quietly. It was a familiar ritual. She would explain to him that at thirty-two—their birthdays were only two months apart—they still had plenty of time. He would say it was not going to get any easier the older they got, nor would her career be any easier to interrupt.

She glanced at her watch. Halden was expecting her phone call at eight, and she still had stacks of paper to plow through.

“Rick,” she said, putting her glasses back on, “go to hell.”

Twelve months later, they were divorced.

That was a year and a half ago. And that was how long she’d been living in her Gramercy Park apartment, where she had the whole kitchen table to herself.

She switched on the lamp next to her, set down her drink, and got up to put a Sibelius symphony on the record player.

THREE

Rain always made Drew think of Paris. The French capital seemed to glow with some inner warmth when it rained. Gray skies softened the city’s pastel tones further, but glistening water reflected light to give the streets a sparkling brilliance. London wasn’t the same. The gritty, haphazard city seemed just a little grittier in the rain, even more sullen.

Paris had taken on a dreamlike quality in Drew’s mind. For him, it represented Christine. The warmth and depth of that long relationship merged in his memory with the city’s own deeply erotic attraction. They had lived together five years, mostly in Paris. The strains of the last months were resolved when the Financial Times posted Drew to Zurich. But that time, that place, that tender recollection remained the emotional pulse in Drew’s life. Rain reminded him of Paris, but so did sun, snow, sleet, and fog. Paris and Christine filled his thoughts in quiet moments: waiting on the tube platform, queuing for a film, or, as now, piloting his way automatically through the rain along the crowded pavement from Fleet Street to the Savoy.

As he turned from the Strand into the cavernous lane leading to the hotel’s entrance, he felt better for the walk and the fresh air. The rain could hardly dampen his spirits further after yesterday. He had stayed until 4 a.m., waiting with the young overnight editor until the Japanese markets opened—or, rather, didn’t open. He had sent everyone else home at midnight.

MacLean seemed to have vanished. Drew never did reach him at home, and Richard, the overnight man, woke him with the news this morning that MacLean didn’t show up at eight. Drew asked Richard to stay on and called Tom to take the early shift. He was always getting pinched by SBC’s deliberate understaffing. Worse, MacLean’s disappearance made him uneasy, although he kept pushing his suspicions out of his mind.

Preston, for once, was waiting for him. Drew smiled inwardly. Not much for him to do today, with the markets closed.

“How are you, Drew?” Preston said when the maître d’hôtel ushered the journalist over to the corner table. Preston, distinguished with his graying hair and navy blue pinstripes, remained sitting.

“Well enough, considering,” Drew replied. Actually, he didn’t feel too bad, except for this problem with MacLean.

“You’re looking good,” said Preston, prolonging the preliminaries. Drew was alerted. Preston usually plunged into the matter at hand, and there was a lot of matter at hand today.

“We’ve known each other quite a while,” Preston began. “You’re as straight as they come. It’s not something I could say for all of your colleagues.”

Drew felt a sudden queasiness. The stories one heard swirled through his head: the German real estate correspondent who had made 3 million marks buying property in areas before he wrote about them and then selling at a high markup; the Euromarket writer who regularly participated in the orgies thrown by the Oldham group in the Barbican; the celebrated case of the Wall Street Journal reporter who tipped off his boyfriend about the stocks treated in his influential column.

“What are you driving at, Morgan?” Drew asked. He might as well face it now.

“Someone was in the market buying right after the fixing.” Preston fixed Drew with his gray eyes. “They were buying here, and in Zurich, and in Frankfurt, and apparently in New York. Everywhere, in short. They were buying a lot.”

Drew examined his menu carefully, but when the waiter came he ordered smoked salmon.

“How well do you know your people?” resumed Preston.

Drew studied the banker. “Okay, I’ll level with you. We’ve had a fellow missing since yesterday afternoon.” He didn’t mention the lost telex.