16 | THE MORNING AFTER
January 21, 2006
THE RING OF MY CELL PHONE BEGINS TO CRACK through my sleep and enter my consciousness.
“Hello.” I answer because it’s the fastest way to make it stop.
“Nick, it’s Ron.” I almost say Ron who, but another part of my brain narrowly wins the race and figures it out first. Why the hell would Ron be calling? I didn’t know he even had my cell phone number. It feels like the beginning of a practical joke, but I’m only barely processing information.
“Ron. What time is it?”
“I guess it’s about six a.m. We’re in some trouble.” I have an image of him mugged and beaten, lying next to his car, which is stripped and up on cinder blocks.
“Who’s we and what kind of trouble?”
“Me and William. A few other guys. We’re still at the Soho Grand. Things got a little out of control last night and the manager is here and he’s freaking out and he’s going to call the cops. I think we need your help, Nick.”
When a person makes a habit of asking for help and abusing it, it becomes easier to say no, that I’ve already done my part. You’ve come to this well before and the well is dry. If a person has never abused it and sends out a distress call, the minimum human response is that I’ll see what I can do. William and Ron have never asked for my help before.
“All right. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“Thanks, Nick.”
I turn back to Julia. Her face is angled slightly up from the pillow and her eyes are still closed. She never lets the pillow against her face. Her breathing is soft and slow. “Are you awake?”
“I was just wondering that very thing. What was that about?”
“Ron. A kid from the office. He and some other guys got into trouble last night.”
“Are they in jail?”
“No, but they’re about to be. They called to see if I can help.”
“What can you do about it?”
“I have no idea, but I’ll go see what I can do. They’re at the Soho Grand now.”
“Sounds like high-class trouble.”
Her eyes have stayed closed for the conversation. I lean over and kiss her forehead. “I’ll call you later. Maybe we can meet somewhere for breakfast.”
I pull on jeans, loafers, and a long winter coat and put on a wool hat, which will flatten my bed hair. At 6 a.m. on a winter Saturday, the streets are strangely deserted like the setting of a Stephen King novel. The only movements are the few taxis roaming like fishermen on an unstocked stream. I hail one. I close the car door and lean forward to direct him to the Soho Grand as the smell of burnt lamb climbs up my nose. Some sort of god-awful gyro at 6 a.m. I crack the window for relief and start counting streets downtown.
Except for a skeleton overnight crew, the Soho Grand lobby is empty. I wave off a good morning from the bellhop and make directly for the elevator bay, retracing my steps from last night. I round the hallway corner outside the suite and see a cop straddling the doorframe where a closed door should be. One foot in the hall, one foot in the room, with his thumbs in his belt and leaning back against the frame and the hinges of the door to hold it open. He has the winter version of the NYPD coat, which is dark blue and leathery and thick enough to pass for ice hockey padding. He’s big and burly and his mustache doesn’t hide the fact that he’s enjoying himself.
“You their boss?”
I don’t stop but take smaller steps to slow my pace and give a single nod. His smile gets a little broader and he tilts his head to say go right in.
I squeeze past him through the doorframe and into the aroma of champagne spilled into carpet, like sweet mold. What must be the hotel manager is sitting at a writing table rifling through papers, making a show of looking furious but not looking up. No other bodies are moving and I see William, Ron, and Woody and three others that I recognize as Chappy brokers all sitting in a group. Eyes are shifting around the room but none meets mine.
I start out in a wide circular path to survey the room. Three sofas are upside down with legs in the air like upended, helpless turtles and bunched together as though a child had tried to build a fort. Shards of glass are crunching underfoot. I see the necks of what used to be whole bottles scattered across the room, and a shattered plasma TV that has been ripped from its mount on the wall. That must have been big fun, because the other two TVs are in the same condition. A coffee table is broken in two pieces with splinters the size of flatware hanging from the uneven break and all four legs ripped off. Glass still crunches with every step as though a uniform design of the carpet. I come to the open doorway of the master bedroom. The king-sized mattress is pulled from the box spring to the floor and a girl is asleep under the flat sheet. The dresser is turned upside down with all the drawers pulled out and stacked next to it. On the bedside table are four pairs of fake eyelashes neatly laid out. Classy. Probably the girls from Scores. An odd detail to notice, and I realize it is the only upright piece of furniture in the entire suite and so it stands apart like steel construction in a jungle. Soaked towels are balled up in a few places. Maybe early in the night there had been an effort to repair, like the finger in a dam.
I turn back to the main room and my foot lands in six inches of soil. A small tree in a huge ceramic pot had been brought in from the balcony and dropped like a bomb from a plane. The tree on its side looks like a bush against the wall. I stop to take in the whole room. There must have been a campaign to break each thing. Everything from the walls had been pulled off and thrown. Every piece of furniture, book, vase, phone, and pencil broken.
It looks like an Impressionist painting of a hotel room. This is the Black Hawk Down of bachelor parties.
Kicking the dirt off my shoe, I walk back past the six kids. “Nice work.” They don’t look up but this time the hotel manager does. I wave toward the hallway. “Can we have a word outside?”
He’s a balding, bookwormy-looking man and his annoyed expression looks natural to him. “Fine,” he says.
We both turn our shoulders sideways to get past the cop, who closes the door and follows behind us. The manager is still holding his papers and looks to be preparing to launch into his tirade. The only way to diffuse him is to launch into a tirade of my own before he does.
“Those goddamn idiots! Little pricks. They bring their drunken mess into your hotel and make my firm look bad. Those little bastards are going to pay.”
The hotel manager had been about to start screaming his accusations and now his head is moving up and down in quick little movements. There’s room for only one crazy man in a conversation. He realizes he doesn’t need to argue or convince me of anything. He has an ally, a partner in generating the appropriate levels of outrage. “You’re damn right! It was a freaking circus in there. Zoo animals! There have been parties in our suites, but in my twenty-five years in the hotel business I have never seen anything like this. Total abandon of anything resembling human behavior.”
“You know I’m their boss. This was in no way a Bear event, but on behalf of Bear Stearns, I want to apologize.”
“That’s fine, but we’re beyond apologies.”
I look over at the cop, who has his arms folded and a calm smile. He’s patient because he knows he’ll have his turn. I’d guess there’s a fifty-fifty chance he’ll let this play out without making an arrest. He may be satisfied with making them squirm, a few jokes at their expense, then bleeding cash from their nose. The more cash that bleeds, the better chance they have of not getting arrested. Maybe he wants to avoid the paperwork of arresting a bunch of overprivileged kids.
“I understand that. And these kids are going to pay. For everything. And then some. I don’t care if they have to beg from every friend and relative, but they’re going to pay.”
The cop nods and seems to like the sound of this. The manager takes this as a cue to return to shuffling his papers and crunching numbers. “I’m not finished with the inventory, but I’m at a hundred twenty-seven thousand in damages. And counting.”
The cop’s eyes nearly double in size and are almost perfect circles. This is good. There’s hope to avoid jail.
“Keep counting then. I’ll make sure they pay it. And feel free to estimate on the high side. If they don’t want to be fired, they’ll pay every penny and right away.”
I turn to the cop. “Officer, about criminal charges. If they’re arrested, I have to fire them. I’d rather bankrupt them with this bill, then put them through a living hell of my own.”
“Well, I’m still looking into exactly what happened here.”
“There were prostitutes in that room.” The manager points a finger to the door of the suite to remind us of where we’ve just been.
I’m still looking at the cop. “I was told they were strippers who joined the party after a shift at Scores.” This is true for at least some of the girls.
The cop is maintaining a calm tone, like a loving parent resolving a spat between children. “We sent a few girls home. I don’t know who they were but there aren’t any charges there. One more we couldn’t wake up, but she’s free to go when she does. I don’t think they were the ones causing the trouble.”
“Okay.” I’m not sure where this leaves the others. “What about the six in there now?”
He nods to the manager. “Let’s finish up the damages report and take it from there.”
“I’ll get back to work then.” The manager walks back into the room, leaving the cop and me in the hallway.
“So these kids work for you?”
“Some of them. Some are with another company that works with us.”
“Wall Street stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“I never understood all that. What do you guys do?”
I’m trying to decide between a thirty-second and thirty-minute version of this. I also recognize it will be to my benefit not to sound proud about what I do, which is convenient to my state of mind. “Think about it this way. There are people out there who run companies that create goods and services. This hotel, McDonald’s, Johnson and Johnson. They’re the primary force. They need a way to interact with financial markets, to buy and sell companies, to issue bonds, give or get loans. That’s what we help them do. We’re the secondary force. They build and we help move around some of the pieces and then we take a slice for our work.”
“Must be a big slice.”
“Yeah. Over time it can get smaller, but then we find a new way to cut a slice. Wall Street always finds a way.”
“You like what you do?”
My body language has been saying no. “No.” I confirm it and I know I sound genuine. “You like what you do?” I wonder how much patience he actually has for this conversation.
The cop looks at me and he speaks slowly and evenly as though reading the words from the inside of his skull. “In seventeen years on the force I’ve pulled my gun thirty-two times. I’ve had a gun pulled on me eleven times and I’ve been shot twice. I have a cracked vertebra from when I was jumped by two drug dealers, and I have one dead partner. No, I do not like what I do but I’ll keep doing it until I reach my full pension, and I don’t have much time for the kind of crap pulled by your little friends in there.”
The friendly rapport I had hoped we were building is up in smoke. The awkward moment is broken when the manager steps from the suite and I move to him like an expectant father to the OB emerging from the delivery room. “What have you got?”
“The total damages are one hundred seventy-four thousand, five hundred twenty-seven dollars.” The exactness of the number gives more credibility.
“Jesus.” The cop whistles.
“Okay.” I hang this out there like a question.
“If we receive prompt payment in full, I won’t press charges.”
I look over at the cop, who nods at the manager. “If he’s happy, I’m happy.”
“I’ll make sure they pay it. Do you mind if I go have a word with them?” These two know that people in finance make good money, but they don’t grasp the scale. They think these kids will be paying off debt for years. A young kid like Ron just pulled in a bonus of four hundred grand. He could pay this down himself.
“Be my guest.” The manager smiles, starting to feel more relaxed.
I want these six to feel relieved at the deal that has been struck. I walk back in the room and this time all eyes are on me, like kids hoping the teacher will announce recess.
“Jesus Christ, boys.” I find myself enjoying this more than I should. “That cop wants to lock you up. You have cocaine, hookers, and unbelievable destruction of property. If that happens, I doubt any of you hang on to your jobs.” I pause until every eye has dropped from mine to the floor. “I have good news and bad news.” Eyes are back on me. A ray of hope. “You may not be headed to jail. There may be no charges at all, but you have to pay for the damages, including lost revenue while they fix this mess. Every penny, and today.”
There are now some smirks and a few slide their hands back and forth on the top of their thighs as though ready to reach for their checkbooks now and get to work. “Sure, Nick,” says Ron. “How much?”
“One hundred seventy-five grand.”
“Ouch. I didn’t know we had that much fun.” Now that jail is off the table, one of the Chappy brokers is already feeling ready to dine out on this story.
“I’m going to go back in the hall and send these guys in. I suggest you act like this is a lot of money for you.”
Ron squeaks, “This is a lot of money.”
“Shut your mouth. Six ways, this is less than thirty grand each. One of you stay here and the rest of you get your checkbooks, get to the bank when it opens, and scrape it together. And go wake up that girl.”
I step back in the hallway and see the cop and the manager standing in a way that shows there had not been any conversation since I left. “They understand. I suggested one stay here while the others find a way to go get the funds together. It could take some time.”
The cop nods. The manager follows with a nod. “Fine. One of them can wait downstairs in the office.” I don’t know if I saved them from jail or just cost them some extra money. Either way, it’s done and at a cost they won’t even remember a year from now.
“I’m going home.”
It’s too early to call Julia and too late to get back to sleep. I pick up a couple newspapers on my way out of the lobby and go to French Roast on Sixth Avenue, which is open twenty-four hours and where I know I can get both coffee and alcohol.
The late-night club crowd has already come and gone, and the weekend brunch crowd won’t show up for hours, so I have the place mostly to myself. I order a Bloody Mary, coffee, and a scrambled eggs breakfast and settle in with the papers. The first news article shifts my mind to Rebecca’s voicemail from the night before and now my eyes are scanning words on the paper but my focus is on trying to repeat her message verbatim.
I’d like to call her back but I know it’s a bad idea. On the other hand, it’s rude not to return her message. I spend a moment considering which outweighs the other, then realize it’s too early to call anyone anyway. I think if I still want to call her in a couple hours, I will. I conclude this deal with myself and order another Bloody Mary.
The waitress has taken me in like a boarder and seems happy for the company of someone to check in on. She matches my drinking rhythm, and each time the first few ice cubes in my glass are exposed to open air, she’s back with a fresh drink.
After an hour and a half, I’m satisfied I’ve gotten all I can out of the Times and the Post for today. I’m also sure that no harm can come from calling Rebecca, and I want to do it. Actually, I’d like to see her. Not to get her into bed, but because I think this can draw out why I’ve been fascinated with her and why things have been such crap with Julia lately. I haven’t before had an interest in another woman during my years of marriage. I’ve never even slept with a hooker. This new interest isn’t boredom. Something is compellingly good about Rebecca, or inversely, something has gone compellingly bad with Julia. I think I’m equipped to confront it.
I work out my game plan, which is not to mess around with small talk on the phone. I’m better in person and if I want to see her, I should go for that directly and put her on the spot. The more we get comfortable talking, the more she can manipulate a plan. I’ll just make this a tight yes-or-no offer.
The waitress stops by and I ask her to check back in a minute. If I get voicemail, I’ll order another drink then. I feel jitters and I push my dishes to the far side of the table to symbolically clear space around me. I pull up the number that called me the night before and press dial.
She answers on the second ring and instead of saying hello she says, “Hi, Nick.” I know she’s using caller ID, but I don’t expect it and it sounds seductive.
I ask if she can meet and she suggests she can be at Hudson Bar and Books in about an hour and it should be open then. It’s a library-themed cigar bar in the Village and one of the last places in the city a person can still smoke. I haven’t smoked in years but I don’t mind. It seems like the kind of place where nobody would see us.
I have some time to kill, so I get another Bloody Mary to get my thoughts together. I have the sense that I’m cleaning house, but when it comes to Julia and Rebecca, I don’t know what that translates to. Whatever the answer, I’m not sure I’m the type of person who can have a happy marriage anyway. I’m not that happy a guy and marriage isn’t a magic ingredient. A happy career seems even more unlikely. Who the hell likes his job? Trying for more, thinking there could be more, is salt in the wound. Blissful marriages are for movies and storybooks. Blissful jobs are a goddamn farce. Not even the movies go that far.
I decide to stop getting my thoughts together. There’s no way to prepare for something like this and it’s only having the effect of depressing me.
I switch to beer and pass about forty minutes before the walk over to Hudson to meet Rebecca. The walk takes twenty minutes and the cold air combines with the alcohol to get me into a good state. I get there early, so I order a bourbon and sit at a table way in back.
The place is a single room shaped like a rectangle with an alcove in back and a bar to the side of the entrance. It’s mostly a late-night place and now there is only a bartender, waitress, and one person at the bar smoking a cigar. I’ve forgotten what a stink that makes in a closed room. The walls of my alcove are lined with bookshelves and I browse titles to distract myself. There’s a direct line of sight from the door to my table in back, so I adjust the angle of my chair a few times and try which elbow in what position will give me the most relaxed appearance. I keep watching the door but I want to time it so that I’m looking away at a book spine when she walks in and sees me first, then I can pass my eyes around the room and act the right amount of surprised to see her at that moment.
I can’t keep my eyes from the door, and I screw it all up when she walks in and I wave hello before she even sees me.
I’m astonished all over again at how beautiful she is. There’s nothing unusual in her face. There’s nothing distinct or remarkable other than it is classic, perfect beauty, almost devoid of character as though it doesn’t belong to her.
I marvel at her face as she walks toward me, smiling. The perfect angles, the perfect composition of her eyes, mouth, nose, and cheeks. I can’t keep myself from staring and I can’t imagine anyone has ever been able to. She must be used to people studying her. Her whole life, every guy turned on and intimidated. Every girl with a burst of negativity filled with resentment and competitiveness mixed with hopelessness.
Every relationship she’s entered into has begun through this portal of her beauty. I feel sad for a moment that she has been dominated by this. She has been subordinated to her beauty and everything else has to fight to get noticed, if it ever gets a chance at all. I think better to be good-looking than great-looking.
“What’s the emergency? You want to see me right away?” She bangs into conversation with poise and no fear.
“What can I get you to drink?”
“You’re lucky I’m self-confident, otherwise I’d have made you wait and ask me to dinner on a Saturday night.”
“Sorry. There’s something I want to talk to you about and it just seemed like the sooner the better.” I’m starting to wonder if I’m better in person after all. Maybe forcing this is a mistake.
The waitress stops by and Rebecca orders a pinot grigio.
“Okay. What do you want to talk about?”
“Let’s wait for the drinks first.”
We sit back in the chairs again staring at each other, and I can almost see the shift of gears in her head. “And since I’ve come all the way here, let me ask you a question.”
“Shoot.”
“In a few months they’re going to fine Freddie Mac for illegal campaign contributions. They’re also going to wrap up a two-year investigation as to whether Freddie Mac has been misstating earnings.”
“Your question?”
Her voice takes on a tone of duty. “Since this is basically what you trade every day, maybe it’s bundled into something or it’s some related insurance product, but these home loans are the actual instrument underlying your trades of asset-backed securities. I’m wondering if you have any thoughts on the matter.”
“Here’s something you can put on the record. If you compensate a person based on volume, he’s going to give you volume.”
“Volume. You’ll just trade volume, you don’t care if it’s toxic and dangerous.”
“I didn’t say that. I’m saying I’m not paid to care, I’m paid to deliver volume. If you want to fix the problem, you need to fix more than bad loans.”
“I need to fix your motivation.”
“Mine and everyone else’s.” This verbal volleying is not the flirtation I was aiming for.
“It doesn’t motivate you that this can ruin the financial system? Globally?”
“It will change things a little, not ruin them. It’s another cycle. In the nineties it was Long-Term Capital, and there were plenty of things in the decades before that. This might be worse. It might not be.”
“So no laws broken, just a cycle.” She can’t hide her indignation or doesn’t want to.
The waitress brings our drinks.
“I didn’t say that either. I’m sure laws are being broken the same as they always are. Imagine the financial system is a heart, pumping liquidity all around. It’s not a hundred percent efficient. Brokers and traders take a big percentage away from everything that moves. People move stuff that is unhealthy. Maybe they don’t know it’s unhealthy; maybe they do know and deceive. Whether it’s deception or systemic inefficiency, let’s call it corruption to be simple. Corruption is cholesterol in the heart. This is a high-cholesterol town. It’s always building up and once in a while the heart needs surgery. Someone, maybe the attorney general or Congress, goes in and cleans out the cholesterol and plaque. As soon as surgery is over, the cholesterol starts flowing and accumulates in new places. The cycle starts again. We’ll need another surgery again later. The thing is, this heart never stops beating.”
She leans back with her wine and I’m trying to read if it’s a smirk or a smile. “That’s an awfully convenient point of view. What’s your bonus this year?”
“No comment.”
“Of course not. I can safely assume it’s some number of millions.”
“Are you still trying to work over Freddie Cook?”
“I was never trying to work over Freddie. He called me.”
“Please don’t push him. He’s already got problems.”
“You all do.”
“That’s true. Some of us more than others.”
She sips her drink but keeps eye contact. “So, you wanted to talk about something?”
“I saw you do a reporter hit from the exchange floor the other day. You looked great.”
“Thanks.”
“There’s something different about you. Some of the women come across flat on TV. With you there’s something magnetic and exciting and it’s not just looks.”
“Thank you.” It’s a sincere compliment and she can feel it. I can tell by her eyes that she likes how the conversation is making her feel. And the eyes are on me. I haven’t had playful eyes daring me to look back in too long. At home it has been dead eyes. I think to myself that married people still ought to find a way to flirt.
“Just an observation.”
She looks like she’s decided something and leans forward. “Nick, you know I’m not shy.”
“I suspected that.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t return a compliment with a compliment, but I don’t care about that and I will. You’re very handsome. And you’re exactly my type. Physically.” I guess she adds this to be clear that married is not her type.
“What’s your type?”
“Tall and dark hair.” God, I’m loving the flirting. There’s reckless energy passing between us.
I don’t say anything for a while because I think it will make the suspense build. I’m getting goofy happy to the point that I’m not planning anything I’m saying but ad-libbing. “Sometimes we meet people that make us question the way we’ve set up our lives. Make us wonder about things.” It feels risky to say this and I like it.
Her brows come together, trying to pull another sentence from me to discover my meaning. When there isn’t another, she says, “Nick, you’re officially flirting with me.” I can see she’s pleased.
“Maybe I am. A little. I think it’s better to get it out in the open.” I think I went too far. I brought our little fantasy back to earth where I have a wife.
“I see.” She’s having fun but doesn’t seem to be taking me seriously, treating this as something futile. “Just what are you putting out in the open?”
“I like how I feel when I think about you.” I hadn’t put it into words before and I like how well I put my finger on it.
“Are you separated from your wife?”
“No.”
“Have you talked to her about separating?”
“Well, no.” This is starting to go sideways.
“So what are you telling me?”
Now I’m feeling indecisive and stupid. “I just wanted to tell you how I feel.”
“Are you hoping I’ll say something so we can do what you want and you can still be off the hook for it?”
“It’s not that. Truly, I’ve just wanted to see you, and for the first time acted on it. I haven’t thought about it much more than that and I haven’t talked about it with Julia or anyone else.” I hadn’t meant to say her name.
I can’t tell if she’s irritated or hurt or both. “Nick, I don’t know your wife. Even if I did, I can’t give you advice about any of this. Relationship advice is always bad because nobody knows what they’re talking about.”
“I’d like to talk about it anyway.” It occurs to me Julia must be talking to someone.
“I shouldn’t be the one you talk to, Nick. Better not to choose someone you might end up in bed with. The only two people qualified to talk about this type of thing are relatives or friends of the same sex.”
“Relatives of the opposite sex are okay?” I’m trying to be cute and should have known it would sound idiotic, but she lets it go.
“Unless there’s a threat of incest.”
“So the problem is always sex.” The collapse into silliness might be saving the conversation.
“Of course. Even if it’s minuscule, there’s some percentage greater than zero that wants to have sex with the other person. Immediate disqualification from giving advice. You’ve seen When Harry Met Sally. The first half of the movie is true. The second half is a fake way to resolve the first half.”
“There’s not a third category? What about a shrink?”
“Nope. There too. Shrink needs to be same sex or at least fifty years apart in age.”
“Have you slept with your shrink?”
“None of your business.”
“Jesus.” I clink her wineglass and sip my bourbon. “Despite the opposite sex part, I think I came to the right place.”
We settle back in our chairs and are silent for a moment, a silence she finally breaks. “You shouldn’t cheat, you know.”
“Oh?” I feel like I was just starting to come around to the idea.
“The fact that you asked the question answers your question.”
“Not in a very declarative way.”
“Anyway, I don’t want to sleep with someone who’s married or on the fence about leaving his marriage. I don’t think you’re even on the fence. I think you’re on the other side of the fence. With your wife.”
I wonder if there’s truth to this. I don’t know if I brought up Julia because I’m in love with her or because I’m going a little insane with frustration.
She takes my silence as agreement and continues. “I’m thirty-two. Ten years ago this might have been fine, but not now. If you change your mind, and your circumstances, and get your act together, then we can talk.”
I clink her glass again. I know it’s a cowardly thing to do, but I couldn’t have said it any better. “Since I got you all the way here, let me buy you another drink.”
“Deal.”
The waitress brings another round. This time Rebecca clinks my glass and says, “To getting to know ourselves.”
“Cheers.”
“And to discovering what may be right around the corner.” She winks. God, she’s gorgeous. “It was good to see you again, Nick.” She says this in a sincere tone, and I feel that she doesn’t usually say this in parting but reserves it for those it really was good to see.