“Nice, huh?” Chuck said, his voice echoing in the room. “Would’ve had the place to myself, too. The beds are spoken for, but I think there’s a foldout in that corner near the kitchen. Brad’s still out. He’ll be back soon.”
Chuck’s footsteps retreated up the spiral stairs. I found the bathroom, flipped on the light, and hurled the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I paused, gulping for air, then puked again. After the nausea receded, I splashed water on my face and rinsed my mouth. I felt better. More in control. I’d sleep a little, get back to my room, be fine in the morning. Hungover, but fine.
Something woke me. The sound of the air-conditioning turning on or off. I’d passed out on the couch without bothering to unfold it. I was shivering, and I had a kink in my neck.
It was tempting to stay there, to close my eyes and let the drunken fog tug me back under. I knew I ought to get up, go back to my room, get some real sleep. In just a few minutes. My mind swam with the soothing hum of the AC.
Then, how much later I didn’t know, there was the sound of laughter and high heels on the marble floor. The high-pitched, breathy voice of a woman.
The lights went on. Suddenly I was wide awake, my heart hammering and blood rushing to my head. Brad was back, with company. I felt a preemptive embarrassment at being discovered here.
There were more than two voices. One woman and another. Brad muttering something. Then:
“I’m going to have a drink. Ladies?” Michael.
The two women chorused a yes.
The sound of liquid splashing into glasses, bodies sinking into leather sofas. I turned onto my stomach and peered over the arm of the couch. My view was mostly obscured by the dining table and the oak-paneled bar. They hadn’t seen me, and the window for making myself known without humiliation was closing rapidly. No, I realized. It had closed already.
Brad was on one couch, Michael and the two women on another. One woman, the blonde from the club, was hunched over the glass-topped coffee table. When she sat up, she handed a rolled-up dollar bill to Michael.
“This is good shit, Brad,” Michael said, wiping the coke from his nose.
Brad was silent. It looked like he was reading something on his phone.
“So,” Michael said. “What do you ladies think of my friend here?”
The second woman—a redhead—giggled. “I think he’s handsome.”
“I think you’re handsome,” the blonde purred, nestling up to Michael.
“I think you have better taste than your friend.” He ran his hand up her bare arm. I grimaced. She was at least thirty years younger than he was.
The redhead stood up, dress slipped off her shoulder to expose a lacy black bra, and went to the other couch. She snuggled up to Brad, but Brad just kept his eyes on his phone.
“So what do you guys do?” one of the women asked. “You must be big shots with a room like this.”
“You should see my room, honey. We’ll take a field trip later.”
“We’re in finance,” Brad said abruptly. “Hedge funds.”
Silence, then one ventured, “Hedge funds. What does that mean?”
“It’s a way of investing designed to mitigate risk,” Brad said, alert again. “Hedging your bets. At any given point in time, we’re betting on a number of different scenarios, so no matter which way the market goes, we’re protected. So an example would be—if I met a woman out at a club, but I wasn’t sure how she felt about me, maybe I’d bring her friend along, too. See? I’ve hedged my bets. In case one says no, I have a backup.”
Michael snorted. “Brad’s a nerd, in case you couldn’t tell. Don’t get him started. But this is boring. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Actually.” Brad’s voice was rising. “Actually, I don’t think it’s boring at all. It’s interesting, in fact. I was going through the books this week, and there was some fascinating stuff in there.”
“Not now. We have company.” Michael slid his hand up the blonde’s skirt and kissed her neck. She was giggling and blushing. Her friend attempted the same with Brad, but he pushed her away impatiently.
“I think we do, Michael. I think we want to talk about this right now. We can do it alone, or we can do it in front of these two. Up to you.”
Michael laughed. “Ladies, I’m sorry. I apologize for him. No manners at all.” He tucked several crisp-looking bills into the blonde’s dress. “Some other time.”
The high heels obediently clacked their way back across the marble foyer, and the doors opened and closed a moment later. Michael turned to Brad.
“You mind telling me what the fuck that was about?”
“I need to talk to you about this, Michael. Right now. We have a big problem on our hands.”
“What? For God’s sake, what is it?”
Brad took a deep breath. “I was looking at the books, getting ready for the conference. I noticed something wasn’t lining up. So I went deeper into the numbers, and I saw we have a lot of exposure—a lot of exposure—in one particular area. Which I’d heard nothing about. The lumber markets.”
“And?”
“Do you know about this? All the money we have tied up in lumber futures?”