Dead Cat Bounce (16 page)

Ain’t it awesome?

The market’s gone insane

Makes it easy for us to play our games

The pub was now rocking, everyone was singing, jumping up and down, champagne bottles raised in the air. All Jonah could do was shake his head and laugh along.

I took a chair in the Baron’s lair

When he saw it was the time to go short

Now he could feel hands grabbing him and beginning to lift him. Someone grabbed the champagne bottle out of his hands. “What’s happening?” he shouted.

Blasted shares all around the world

Saw their values fall close to naught

We stuffed the banks

’Cause let me be quite frank

Their management reeked

And their loan books stank

Jonah was up in the air, on his back, helpless, and could hear a chant of “Crowd surf! Crowd surf!” around him.

Ain’t it awesome?

The market’s gone insane

Makes it easy for us to play our games

The hands were moving him around above them, and he could do nothing except trust them not to drop him.

I laughed with glee

As their gluttony

Paid the price in spades

For its grand charade

He was being maneuvered toward the bar.

I shouted out

Who’s next for bankruptcy?

I’ll tell you what

It won’t be me

Let me please introduce myself

iPod is my name

“Yeah!” he shouted as he was deposited safely on the bar next to the Baron.

I short stocks for the fun of it

And the bonus that’s on its way

Finally, the music stopped, but if anything, that only made the din of the tightly packed space seem louder. “Big hand for iPod?” the Baron called out over the noise.

There was a tumultuous roar of approval from the crowd.

Jonah gave an embarrassed smile, grateful to the Baron for
the attention but unsure what to do with it now that he had it. He decided that now was a moment for loyalty. He waved his arms as he’d seen the Baron do, attempting to capture the same level of poise. It worked—for the most part. The crowd grew silent and Jonah pointed at the Baron. “That was nice and everything, but we all know it’s not me who’s the lucky one. It’s this man!”

The masses erupted in applause. “Baron! Baron! Baron!” everyone screamed.

Jonah took that opportunity to tiptoe off the bar.

That’s when he collided into Dog. “Hey, Dog,” he said.

Dog grimaced. “You.”

“Yeah …” Jonah raised his eyebrows.

“He certainly likes
you
enough.”

“Huh?” Jonah noted that he hadn’t actually seen Dog actively participate in the latter half of the Sympathy Session.

“I said he likes you”—he burped—“the Baron, I mean.” Now that Dog continued speaking, Jonah could tell that he’d become a lot more intoxicated since he’d seen him last.

Jonah shrugged. “Same as he likes everyone, I suppose.”

“Nah.” Dog flicked his hand. “Probably sees a lot of himself in you.”

“I don’t know if that’s—”

Dog cut him off. “Him being an orphan. Your practically being one. Plus, you’re both nasty buggers, aren’t you?”

Jonah froze. This wasn’t the turn he’d expected the conversation to take.

“Ahhhh, I’m kidding,” Dog slurred, playfully punching Jonah. “Come and join the rest of us. We is cookin’!” He dragged Jonah
over to where Birdcage, Milkshake, and Jeeves were standing.

“Heeere’s iPod!” shouted Birdcage. “Who do you think is the better dancer?” He bopped his head and shook his hips in a way that made him look even more like a giraffe than usual. “Me or Milkshake?”

“You call that dancing?” Milkshake said, breaking out a move of his own.

Jonah cracked up laughing. He was one of them. This was his tribe. This was where he belonged—not at school where the boys his own age couldn’t understand his interests, but here, with people like himself. The bar was going wild, singing and dancing along as the Baron’s voice rang out with song after song, Jonah and the Bunker Boys at the center of the action.

From there the evening descended into chaos. The Baron even had Jonah sing the chorus of Muddy Waters’s “Mannish Boy” into the microphone. And at one point all the Bunker Boys stood up on the bar and created a manmade pyramid. To Jonah, it felt like he was floating on an ocean of euphoria.

This lasted for a couple more hours until Jonah’s tiredness kicked in. He looked at his watch—it was nine twenty-five. He had a race the following day, and the lack of sleep of the past week was taking its toll.

He gestured goodbye to the Bunker Boys, but most people were so drunk they didn’t even notice him sneak out. Even the Baron didn’t acknowledge his departure, though that was because he was outside, engrossed in his phone.
Back in the money-making zone
, thought Jonah.
What a god!

Kloot’s operative left the meeting room inside the Federal Reserve at four twenty-five
P.M.
New York time and headed downstairs for a cigarette. He slipped out of the entrance onto Maiden Lane, parallel to Wall Street, and turned away from the posse of media photographers and TV camera crews camped outside the building waiting for news of the Allegro rescue. Once clear, he pulled out a box of cigarettes from his pocket and put one in his mouth. Across the road a man watched him carefully flick the flint on his lighter and light it.

That was the signal. He had indicated that yes, Allegro would be rescued.

The man across the street flipped open his cell phone and sent a blank text to Kloot, who in turn sent texts to five traders positioned in major financial centers around the world: one in London, one in New York, one in Hong Kong, one in Chicago, and one in Zurich.

These texts weren’t blank.

What appeared instead—or what would have appeared to someone who wasn’t in the know—was a telephone number consisting of seven digits. In reality, each number had an important meaning. The first number was a one or a two: one for buy, two for sell. The next three numbers were the size of the trade in millions of dollars. The final three numbers were the price. All communication was done through untraceable prepaid cell phones. Even if the authorities had ever worked out what had happened, they would have never been able to follow the trades back to their original source.

Kloot removed the SIM card from his phone and stepped out onto the terrace of the hunting lodge, a cigar in hand, his bodyguard,
Klaasens, standing off to the side. He blew a smoke ring with his second draw on the cigar and admired its purity as it rose into the air before disintegrating in the light breeze that was blowing from the southwest. He’d made a five-hundred-million-dollar bet using derivatives that the Allegro Home Finance share price would go up over the next month. He expected to make at least three billion dollars, probably five. He blew another smoke ring. All so easy. He tossed the SIM card into the dying embers of the fire that had cooked his steaks earlier in the evening and watched it disintegrate. “Another day, another billion dollars,” he murmured.

In London, Jonah went to the office to collect his briefcase—the pub was only two doors over—and back outside to wait for a taxi. It was five minutes before one pulled up to drop someone off, and Jonah readied himself to claim it once the current occupant had departed. The door opened and out stepped Creedence Clearwater, looking cool in a black skirt and a very un-businesslike leather jacket.

Jonah’s heart skipped a beat. She was the one person who could make this night even better.

“Blimey, you’re late for a Friday,” she said, shaking her head. Then taking a better look at him—the loose neck tie, the messy hair—she added, “And you look like you haven’t been to bed all week.”

Jonah gave a tired smile and said in a theatrically distressed voice, “I can’t take it anymore. I’ve had enough. I’m leaving.” Creedence’s face dropped, and he quickly added, “Not really. But I am going home to get some sleep. It’s been a mad, mad week.”

She brightened up. “Oh! Are you going to Barnes? If so, you can
share this cab and drop me off in Fulham on the way. I’ve just got to dump these packages at reception.” She held up two Louis Vuitton bags. “Some girlfriend’s birthday present. No thought, all money.”

“Works for me, if you don’t mind,” said Jonah, his fatigue falling away.

“Great. I’ll be one minute.”

Jonah got into the cab and told the driver of the change of plan, while Creedence dashed inside the building, dropped the bags off, sprinted back out, and climbed in next to him.

“So how’s it been?” she asked. “What you expected?”

Jonah launched into a summary of his week at work. He was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to talk to Creedence—she was incredibly attentive and continually fired questions at him.

“I can’t work out that man,” she said after Jonah had begun telling her what it was like to work for the Baron. “Sometimes he’s charming. Sometimes I’m invisible.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I think it’s because he’s so focused on what he does.”

Shifting gears, Creedence asked Jonah about his running, which took him aback. “How do you know about my running?”

“Oh, I read your file. It has press cuttings in it.”

“Jesus. No secrets, eh?” He tried to sound upset, but in reality he was pleased. “I’m not sure there will be many more of those after this week. I’ve got a race tomorrow. Boy is that going to hurt.”

“Really? Whereabouts?” she asked.

“Richmond Park.”

She seemed so genuinely interested in his life that they were in Chelsea before he managed to turn the conversation onto her. He
discovered she was taking a year off before going to university, but she had jumped a year at school, which made her only a year older than him. Her passion was singing. She sang mainly jazz and blues, and Jonah told her all about the singing he and the other Bunker Boys had done that night, which made her laugh. He learned about her relatives, an exotic bunch of French aristocrats, burlesque artists, restaurateurs, and hippies. Her parents lived in California, where they owned vineyards and made wine, but her grandmother still lived in England and was, by the sounds of it, a wild old girl even at the age of seventy. Creedence was going to stay with her this weekend.

It was all a far cry from Jonah’s own broken family. He had never met any of his grandparents. They had all died before he was born, and he realized that he didn’t even know their names.

The taxi pulled up to the curb outside a line of terraced houses in a street off Fulham Road, and Jonah found himself disappointed that the journey had ended.

“Well, this is me,” said Creedence, and Jonah felt a sudden sense of awkwardness where previously everything had been so relaxed. He was wondering what to say when she added, “You’ll have to ask me out if you want to hear about the rest of my fabulous family tree.” She was looking at him, challenging him almost.

He felt the butterflies in his stomach again but managed to stay cool, revealing nothing. He pretended to be thinking hard. “Mmmm. Let me see.” He scrunched up his face. “Oh, stuff it. I’ll live on the edge. Are you free for dinner and a movie next Saturday?” he asked.

Creedence laughed. “Mr. Lightbody, it would be my pleasure.”
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek before getting out. “Good luck tomorrow, and maybe I’ll see you around sometime next week.” She slammed the door shut, waved, and turned toward the building entrance.

Jonah watched her go, wondering what excitement lay beyond those closed doors. He would never tell the Baron this, but he expected it might even be better than the million dollars that was soon to burn a hole in his pocket.

Jonah looked around
at the runners warming up beside him in Richmond Park. He had slept well and felt refreshed, ready for the challenge of the seven-and-a-half-mile race that was about to start. The weather was overcast and cool, not ideal given that the opposition was mainly made up of fully grown men. Jonah was at his best in bad conditions or difficult courses, when a strong mind could make up for any relative physical frailties. A win today would require his “brain and pain” strategy. His plan was to go out fast and try to break his nearest challengers well before the finishing line. He knew he wouldn’t be able to compete in a sprint finish with these older men.

Jonah had first taken up running because he wanted to find something he and his father could do together. It quickly became clear that running was something Jonah was good at, but not something his dad wanted to do with him. David Lightbody preferred to exercise alone, and if it had not been for the Baron’s urging him
to keep going—along with a healthy diet and alcohol abstinence, physical fitness was on the list of things the Baron felt most traders overlooked—Jonah probably would have given up. And it was a good thing he hadn’t—running had since become an essential part of his life. It had really helped in year three of his training in particular, when he’d become so obsessed with trading that his father had refused to speak with him for a month. Of all the ways Jonah knew to release stress, running was by far one of the best, just as the Baron had told him it would be.