Those first few hours of consciousness, essential to understanding the markets and analyzing their direction, sabotage an otherwise perfect career choice. Like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up the mountain, I struggle to make research. I fall back and repeat the same brutal ordeal Monday through Friday.
Hangovers don’t help.
______
That Tuesday my alarm clock buzzed at 5:30 A.M. My head throbbed like an open wound disinfected with limoncello. I turned the alarm off, fell back asleep, and straggled into the office long after research had ended. It was around 8:45 A.M. when Patty Gershon greeted me with her stupid joke: “Thanks for coming in today, O’Rourke.”
“You need new material, Patty.”
“We need to talk,” she shot back.
“Let me get settled,” I said. “How about this afternoon?” I meant after the close. I would learn later, in the most unfortunate way, that Patty Gershon understood something else.
“Now is better. I need to ask you something.”
That woman can steamroll concrete.
“Patty, what don’t you understand about me getting settled?”
“You sound gravelly, O’Rourke. Big night?” Hangovers commanded respect in my industry. Throaty voices served as the Purple Hearts of Wall Street.
“What’s the question?”
“Do you know who Eva Braun is?” It was not a test. She had no clue.
“Of course,” I replied.
“Will you tell me?”
“Just Google her, Patty.” Wall Street people are bankrupt when it comes to history. Through the years I had grown accustomed to the dearth of knowledge. But Patty’s question floored me. She was Jewish. She should have known the name of Hitler’s mistress.
“The server’s been down all morning. No Internet access.” She nodded at the computer I was carrying, Charlie’s laptop, as though to emphasize the tyranny of technology glitches.
“Why do you ask?”
“My mom,” Patty replied, “said I remind her of Eva Braun.”
In the history of the universe, there had never been a more contemptuous remark between mother and daughter. Hiding my outrage, I asked, “Did you guys have a fight?”
“How’d you know?” Patty asked, her forehead furrowing.
No Botox
.
“Lucky guess,” I lied. “Something in your voice, maybe.”
“So who is she?” Patty persisted.
“During World War Two,” I started, summoning every ounce of statesmanship in my body, “Eva Braun consorted with the Axis leaders on a regular basis. Some considered her a great beauty. Others regarded her as a controversial figure because of the company she kept.” It seemed likely my explanation would hold up, even if Patty checked later. “Your mother,” I added at my ambassadorial best, “probably wants to reconcile.”
Confession time.
“Thanks.” She called after me, “This afternoon, O’Rourke.”
In the adjacent cubicle, Annie was just finishing a conversation as I began the day at my desk. Our low, open-plan partitions made for easy communication, good visual and verbal access. They also eliminated privacy. Fights between spouses, job offers from competitors, ED and other medical setbacks—everybody knew everybody’s affairs. Literally.
“Last night was great,” Annie said into the receiver. “Love you too.”
She’s seeing somebody
.
“Oh, Boss,” Annie crooned, stretching out the two syllables, not in the Southern way but more in the singsong way of a woman with gossip on her mind. “Tell me about last night.”
“What’s to tell? Great to see Sam. Probably drank too much.”
“Didn’t notice,” she croaked huskily, mimicking my hangover rasp. “Want me to order a bacon, egg, and cheese?”
“Who’s better than you?” I confirmed.
Ordinarily, Annie would have swiveled around in her chair and dialed the deli downstairs. She lingered, though. She appeared hesitant.
Did I miss something?
“What’s the news?” she asked.
Curious?
“Sam’s pregnant. Two months. So don’t say anything.”
“That’s wonderful.” She brightened, but for only a moment. Her warm smile faded. “I think.” No doubt Annie was considering Sam’s future—pregnant, widowed, and broke save for my $75,000 wire.
“The baby’s a gift,” I reassured Annie.
“Sam must be scared.” Fiddling with her golden blond hair, Annie added, “You’re a good friend.”
This is awkward.
“Any calls?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Halek. You need to call him.”
She’s distracted about something.
“When don’t I call Cliff?”
“Today’s different. Congratulations are in order.”
“Promotion?” Cliff Halek was SKC’s smartest man, after all.
“Nothing like that,” she said. “You know how he hates Goldman.” It was more statement than question.
“Of course.”
“Remember the
Wall Street Journal
article last Friday?” she asked.
“Which one?”
“The one where Goldman’s head trader bragged about eating everybody’s lunch. Merrill, Morgan, SKC, all of us.”
“Saw it,” I acknowledged. “The guy’s a bonehead.”
“Cliff knows him. Says he’s a jerk. He sent the ultimate ‘screw you’ to their trading floor.”
“Which was?”
“One hundred pizzas,” she answered.
“Sounds more like a gift.”
“There are all kinds of pies, Boss.” Annie’s blue-green eyes gleamed. She temporarily forgot whatever was troubling her. She was a born storyteller, a natural raconteur. I think Annie found joy, some kind of inner peace, from spinning yarns or delivering dénouements.
“Okay?”
“These pies were made with garlic anchovies, ripe Limburger, and fried onions. Every last one. Halek stank up Goldman’s trading floor. The pizzeria even threw in some liverwurst.”
“That’s disgusting,” I said, feeling more alert now, warming to the day. It was too bad Ponce de León never found Wall Street in his quest for eternal youth. Few people in our industry ever matured past adolescence.
“His note was short.”
“Typical Halek.”
“All it said was ‘Eat this, Goldman.’ ”
We both chuckled. But there was something about Annie’s vibe. It still troubled me.
What am I missing?
“Annie, is there something on your mind?”
She hesitated for a split second and said, “No, Boss.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.” Pause. The moment dallied before passing uncomfortably. “I have that fax from Betty Masters.”
“Out-fucking-standing.”
Annie wheeled around, picked up a fourteen-page fax from her desk, and handed it to me. “I’ll be back with that bacon, egg, and cheese.”
“You’re the best.”
Something’s bothering her.
I made two mental notes. One was to speak with Annie later. The other was to congratulate Halek. His pizzas were the best “fuck you” I had ever heard. Right now, I needed to work. Make a few phone calls. Follow up on some prospects.
Yeah, right.
Curiosity was killing me. I rifled through Betty’s fax, the audited financials we had discussed. On the first page, Crain and Cravath summarized their findings: “In our opinion, the financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Kelemen Group Fund of Funds, Series B (a class of the Kelemen Group Master Series Trust).”
Thank God I’m not an auditor.
The net assets number on the next page, $320 million and change, proved anything but tedious. Charlie ran a bigger operation than I thought. If the fund returned 5 percent, his performance fee would total $1.6 million. Last year, however, the market was up over 15 percent. If Charlie kept pace, he earned about $4.8 million.
Nice.
I leafed through the Statement of Operations, thumbed past the Statement of Cash Flows, and paged into the Notes to Financial Statements—expecting to find a schedule of investments somewhere. What I found annoyed me. Nothing. No list of investments. Not a damn thing.
It’s got to be here somewhere
.
It wasn’t. Note two, “Significant Accounting Policies,” explained the
absence in the standard, if stultifying, vernacular of dweeb-speak: “The Fund records its investment in the Master Fund at fair value. . . .”
Translation: Betty did not invest in the so-called Master Fund. She bought into a different vehicle, which provided capital for the Master Fund. In turn, the Master Fund invested in outside hedge funds. Accountants dubbed this setup a “master-feeder” structure.
Revenge of the nerds.
Note two continued: “Valuation of investments held by the Master Fund is discussed in the Master Fund’s financial statements and accompanying notes. . . .”
Translation: There was no schedule of investments among these papers. I held Series B financials. I needed Master Fund financials. Betty had faxed the wrong thing. Who could blame her? She got lost in FASB, short for the Financial Accounting Standards Board. Their reporting conventions made sense to auditors. For everyone else, they equaled the Bermuda Triangle.
Looking at Charlie’s laptop, I muttered, “You don’t make anything easy, bud.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Windows operating system, tediously slow, stopped cold at the dialogue box requesting a password. I tried “PC” and “Providence” for Charlie’s academic institutions. No good. I tried his birthday, then Sam’s. No good. I even tried the names of the dogs—Un, Deux, and Trois—employing a dozen different permutations. Still no good.
I need a geek to hack in.
Annie delivered the bacon, egg, and cheese along with a bottle of Advil. “Take two and call me around eleven A.M.” She never admitted something was bugging her. But I could tell.
“Pizza” and “Bolognese” and Charlie’s other favorites did not work. The Windows dialogue box came up empty. Nothing.
That was when the phone took over. Betty Masters called first. “Did you get my fax?” she asked.
“Thanks. I was just about to call you.”
“What’s with the voice?” she asked.
“A few drinks last night.”
“Sounds like you left your vocal cords in a shot glass.” I imagined Betty’s 150-watt smile and started fumbling around for my sunglasses.
“Cute. I was just looking at your fax. By any chance did you receive a second financial statement from Charlie? There should have been two.”
“I don’t think so. I’ll check again.”
After we hung up I typed “fundoffunds” as one long word into the Windows dialogue box. Nothing.
Alex Romanov, the self-appointed patron saint of lights-out performance, called next. “I’m glad you’re helping Sam,” he said. “Would you fill me in, Grover?”
The question rankled me. Maybe it was Romanov’s intonation, condescending, dictatorial, irritating to a hangover. Maybe it was his success, annoying the way he always gloated about triple-digit returns.
Halek often predicted Romanov would blow up. “Risk will get him. You can’t deliver three digits without stumbling. Some time, some place, I don’t know how. I just know it always happens.”
Whatever the reason, I reacted to Romanov the way every finance jock handles would-be alpha dogs. “Do you know anything about probate?” I sniped, pleasant enough in tone, but already knowing the answer.
“Not much,” he admitted.
I smiled, savoring first blood in the clash between two well-hung egos circling in the wild. “There’s really not much to report.”
“But,” Romanov continued, “I have legions of lawyers on deck.”
Translation: “More money than you, so don’t pull your probate crap on me.”
He paused to let his words register. “Call me later this week and let me know about your progress.”
What was that all about?
I typed “jerk” and “butthead” into the dialogue box. Nothing.
Fitzsimmons phoned next. He picked up where he left off on Sunday. “This fund of funds,” he said, “did you ever refer any clients to Charlie Kelemen?”
Danger, Will Robinson.
“Why do you ask?”
“You’re a stockbroker,” he replied. “It’s what you people do, right?”
You people?
“Before I can introduce clients to money managers, SKC investigates
them,” I replied. “We have teams of people who review investment styles and operational procedures. I won’t recommend any manager until we complete our due diligence.”
“I thought that’s what the victim did,” Fitzsimmons replied. “You know, the due diligence.”
“He did. But just as Charlie investigated his hedgies, we would investigate the Kelemen Group.”
“Got it,” Fitzsimmons said. “The victim—” Fitzsimmons started.
“Would you stop calling him that?”
“Mr. Kelemen and you were close.”
“Best friends,” I agreed.
“That’s my point. You never referred any of your clients to him?”
There’s some top producer in Fitzsimmons. He pushes until he gets what he wants.
“What is it you want, Detective? Do you have some reason to believe I made a referral? And if so, why the fuck is it important?”
“We’re exploring all angles,” he barked back.