Chapter 5
Evan
“What the fuck, man?” Roger said, shaking his head. “It’s a bloodbath out there.”
Despite Kleinman’s rousing speech that morning, there was not much to be done that day. The top executives were in damage-control mode, on the phone with our investors, conveying to them the same confident lines we’d just heard. But everyone else had too much time on their hands. Taking slow walks around the floor, calling their wives in the middle of the day. Roger staring, slack-jawed, at the computer screen. The eerie quiet was only punctured by his occasional declarations of disbelief, which I did my best to tune out, because I was the anomaly. I actually had work to do. This lumber deal was taking up every second of my time.
Roger noticed me studying a model and chewing on a thumbnail. “What is that?” he said. “Peck. Are you actually working right now?”
“Just something, um, something leftover from a few days ago.”
Keep it light and vague, those were my orders. “Not till we’re ready to push the button,” Michael had said. “Soon. I know how hard you’ve been working on this, Evan. I’ve seen how late you’re staying and how early you’re coming in. I’m impressed. You’re handling this very well.”
This was the previous week, in Michael’s office, the beginning of September. I had stopped by to go over the latest numbers. I’d been working up the nerve to say something to Michael about the workload, which I could barely handle. In a bathroom stall that morning, I practiced the sentence in a whisper. My stomach was a watery mess. Michael, I wonder whether we want to think about bringing someone else on board. Couldn’t the deal use a fresh pair of eyes? That seemed a fair enough rationale.
But Michael had preempted me with praise before I had a chance to open my mouth. It was a cornering tactic. A dare. What was I going to do, tell Michael that his confidence was misplaced? That I actually wasn’t as capable as he thought I was? And risk getting kicked off the deal entirely? So instead I mumbled a thank-you.
“And I appreciate it,” Michael went on. “How discreet you’ve been. That’s the best way to handle a deal like this. Stay quiet. Just focus and do what you’re doing. Keep up the good work, Evan.”
So that was it. I was just going to put my head down and get through it. Just as I’d done in the past, taking it one predawn practice at a time, inching closer to the end. By eleven that Monday morning, the morning of Kleinman’s departure to DC, I had finished the latest component of the model. I walked the papers over to Michael’s office. There was an assumption in the formula that needed clarifying, the one part of the deal that still didn’t make sense to me. I was a little worried, actually. It was the last factor that seemed liable to screw everything up.
Michael’s secretary, Wanda, halted me outside his office. She was all sassy middle-age curves: blown-out hair, chair-wide hips, bright red lipstick. “Uh-uh,” she said in her Jersey accent. “I don’t think so, honey. You’re not getting in there today. You wanna give that to me, I’ll try to get it to him.”
I peered over Wanda’s shoulder, trying to see through the open door. She’d been with Michael for years, and she could be excessively protective. “What’s he doing?”
“Trying to run the company—what do you think? He’s been on the line all morning.” The phone on Wanda’s desk rang. She tapped her Bluetooth headset and jerked her head to dismiss me. “O-kay? Stop by tomorrow. Maybe I can fit you in.”
I couldn’t go any further on this model without Michael answering my question. So I spent the rest of the morning as Roger and the other analysts did, trolling the Internet for updates, killing time in an uneasy boredom, the same things I had done at the beginning of the summer. The TVs in the lounge were tuned to CNBC and Bloomberg Business. People lingered there, watching, looking for any excuse to stay away from their desks. Late in the afternoon, I walked past and found myself hypnotized by the mounting intensity of the coverage.
WALL STREET’S WORST DAY SINCE 9/11
DOW DOWN OVER 500 POINTS
LEHMAN DECLARES BANKRUPTCY
MERRILL BOUGHT BY BANK OF AMERICA
IS YOUR MONEY SAFE?
FORCED LIQUIDATION—HISTORIC VOLUME
EVERYTHING CALLED INTO QUESTION
One of the managing directors, a petite brunette woman, had her hands steepled over her mouth and tears in her eyes. Another woman put her arm around her shoulders. “Her husband works at AIG,” I heard someone whisper. “Three kids. Just bought a house in Quogue.”
Roger, standing across the lounge, caught my eye and waved me over. “Let’s go to the roof,” he said.
“What? Now?”
“Come on. It’s dead. No one’s gonna notice.”
We took the elevator to the top of the building, where Roger propped open the door with a loose brick. It was a beautiful day, a bluebird September sky. The city stretched out far below us, metal and glass glittering in the sunlight.