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But Pinky Dewer was a different matter. What Timothy had
in common with Pinky Dewer was that both men had received a large amount of money from their fathers. Where they differed was that Pinky had taken that money, around forty million dollars, and multiplied it fifteen-fold, through some mysterious financial alchemy that Timothy only vaguely understood: something to do with leverage and arbitrage, with buying public companies and taking them private, or perhaps buying private companies and taking them public – Timothy could not remember which. What Timothy had managed to do with the Van Bender nest egg was different: he had managed to hold on to it and make it grow by about five percent per year. The Van Benders were, when it came to both money and sex, conservative. Financial and bedroom activities were to be carried out in a way that would not be embarrassing to explain to children.

So when Pinky Dewer showed up at Timothy's office, Timothy understood that he was temporarily demoted down the food chain from financial carnivore to financial prey. It was a role Timothy was unaccustomed to playing, but Pinky was the largest investor in Osiris, having placed twenty-four million in Timothy's fund. Through the magic of his hedge fund's one percent management fee, Timothy earned two hundred and forty thousand dollars each year simply by holding onto Pinky's money. That was twenty thousand dollars per month. Which was enough to make Timothy amenable to switching places on the food chain for a day.

Timothy strode into the reception area with his hand already outstretched. He reached for Pinky's hand and pumped it aggressively. ‘Pinky!' he practically shouted.

‘Timothy, old boy!' Pinky swung his left hand and grabbed Timothy's right, thus controlling the pace and duration of the shake. ‘How are you?' Timothy tried to extract his hand, but Pinky kept shaking. ‘It is great to see you, old friend.'

‘And you,' Timothy said. Pinky kept pumping his hand, and he smiled at Timothy and stared into his eyes. Pinky had cold, blue, smiling eyes.

Timothy smiled back and kept pumping. It was pointless to try to retract his hand. Pinky would not let him go.

Pinky was a big, colorful, bear-like man. His hair was once
bright red, but now auburn and gray. He wore perfectly polished penny loafers, bright green slacks, and a pink Oxford shirt. His face was bright red. For as long as Timothy had known him – since their days at Yale together – Pinky's face had been red. This, Timothy understood, was the inevitable result of spending days sailing his catamaran through the windswept Atlantic; of sunning in Naples, Florida; and of drinking bountiful gin and tonics – sometimes all three before noon.

‘I'm so glad you could take the time to see me,' Pinky said. He said it without a trace of irony, which surprised Timothy. ‘And I apologize for dropping by unannounced, but I'm flying out tonight, and I simply had to say hello.'

‘It is a pleasure, Pinky,' Timothy said. ‘You are always welcome here.' He continued pumping Pinky's hand. Over Pinky's shoulder, he saw Tricia sitting at her reception desk, watching him.

Pinky dropped Timothy's hand suddenly, leaving Timothy grasping at air. ‘Can I buy you some lunch?' he asked.

‘Absolutely not,' Timothy said. ‘You will never be able to buy me lunch. But I would love to treat you.'

Pinky laughed, ‘All right, then. Where to?' He put his hand around Timothy's shoulder.

‘Come this way,' Timothy said, as he allowed Pinky to lead him to the elevators. He didn't want to turn to Tricia, to see her watching him. He was glad to be able to slink out of the office, to go far from her, to hide his obsequiousness. He was ashamed of having to act like this, ashamed at his new position on the food chain. Being prey was no fun.

8

Timothy took Pinky Dewer to the Menlo Circus Club for lunch.

The Circus Club was an exclusive country club in the middle of Atherton, California, which was itself an exclusive suburb in the middle of democratic Silicon Valley. During the Internet boom, newcomers to Silicon Valley liked to think they had found a high-tech Shangri-la, a perfect meritocracy, a place where people lived wherever they liked, and worked wherever they liked, and ate wherever they liked, no matter how peculiar their last name, and no matter what color their skin. This was true as far as it went, but what these newcomers did not know was that, when they weren't looking, the Circus Club had quietly seceded from Silicon Valley without telling anyone. A four-acre throwback to twenties glamour, the club was a playground of the rich and the white, a place where people stabled their horses and played polo, and had a Tanqueray before heading off to a game of tennis on clay. Black was an acceptable color at the club, but only for a tuxedo – and tuxedos fortunately never applied for membership on their own.

Timothy drove Pinky to the club in his BMW. They sped through the club grounds, past the polo field, where eight horses in blue and green leg bandages were trotting, warming up before a match, in the afternoon sun. He pulled into the cobblestone reception circle. A valet approached the car, opened the door, and gave him a ticket stub. ‘Welcome back, Mr. Van Bender,' the valet said.

‘Thanks, John,' Timothy said. ‘What's the soup today?'

‘Lobster bisque, Mr. Van Bender.'

‘Terrific, John.'

Timothy helped Pinky from the car. Pinky unfolded his legs,
stood up, and lifted his pants belt over the bulge in his gut. He stared at the polo field. ‘Beautiful,' he said, fiddling with his gold belt buckle. ‘You play?'

‘Betting's the only thing I do on a horse,' Timothy said.

‘Right!' Pinky slapped him on the back. ‘Right, old boy! Imagine the two of us on horses! Now that would be a sight!'

Timothy tried to imagine Pinky balancing precariously on a horse, his stocky frame clad in a pink shirt and green pants. Yes, that would be a sight, indeed.

He led Pinky into the clubhouse. The building was octagonal, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides. To the north were the tennis courts, ringed with azalea bushes. To the west, the stables and the polo field. To the east was the Olympic-sized swimming pool, studded with chaise longues and white umbrellas.

‘Shall we eat outside?' Timothy asked.

‘Terrific,' Pinky said.

They sat on the veranda overlooking the polo field, and ordered drinks just as the first polo chukka started. A whistle blew, and ponies thundered up the grass, following a red wooden ball.

‘A beautiful club,' Pinky said. ‘I'm surprised you haven't taken me before.'

‘Pinky,' Timothy said, ‘any time you're in town, I will take you here. I had no idea you liked horses.'

‘Beautiful,' he said again.

On the polo field a blue player rode off a green player – galloped his horse alongside his opponent and pushed him off the path of the ball. ‘Turn it! Turn it!' his teammates shouted. He raised his mallet high in the air and, with a thwack, sent the ball careening down the field toward the other team's goal.

As they watched the game, the glass door from the clubhouse slid open and another couple joined them on the veranda. It was Michael S. Stanton and Wife #2, whose name always eluded Timothy. Stanton was formerly the CEO of a high-flying medical device company which made stents used in heart surgery. The good news was that the company had reported five years of record-breaking profits. The bad news was that last October the
company reported that those five years of profits were the result of accounting chicanery, and the profits had, chimera-like, turned into five hundred million dollars of losses. And so Michael S. Stanton went from CEO to ex-CEO. Two months later he was indicted by a federal grand jury. His trial for securities fraud was scheduled to begin in two weeks.

‘Michael,' Timothy said, ‘great to see you. How are you doing?'

The question was vague enough to be an invitation to talk about anything Michael cared to talk about: Michael's health, his car, his marriage – and, oh yes, maybe even the indictment that might send him to Pelican Bay for ten to fifteen.

‘Timothy,' Michael said, walking to Timothy's table. ‘Enjoying the weather?'

‘California dreamin',' Timothy said. They shook hands. ‘Michael, I want you to meet Pinky Dewer. Pinky and I are old friends from Yale.'

Michael smiled. ‘From back before they had light bulbs in the dorms, right?

‘Absolutely,' Timothy said.

‘Nice to meet you,' Michael said to Pinky.

‘Likewise,' said Pinky, distracted. His vodka gimlet had just arrived, and he was more interested in the beaded tumbler than in Michael Stanton and Wife #2.

Michael said: ‘And I'm sure you remember my wife, Susan.'

Timothy was grateful for the introduction, because he remembered everything about Michael's wife
except
her name. He remembered the fact that she was blonde, pretty, and thirty years old, which made her twenty-five years younger than Michael Stanton. He remembered how she looked as she walked off the tennis courts, dressed in tight little whites, the way her skin glistened with sweat, the way her short skirt hiked up over her ass when she kept tennis balls in her panties between serves. He remembered how she had appeared at the Circus Club a week after Michael Stanton had divorced his first wife, the elegant but, alas, old Nancy Stanton, and how people had talked, but only for a few days. And then Susan Stanton came to the cocktail parties
instead of old Nancy, and was wearing some of the same jewelry that Nancy had worn (had Michael simply bought duplicates of each piece? people wondered. Or did he snatch the bracelets from his first wife's arm as he ran from their house?) – and then people stopped talking about how strange it was that Michael was married to someone so young, and Susan became another fixture at the club – one the older male members enjoyed looking at – and Michael Stanton, despite his indictment and likely jail term and newspaper notoriety, became simply envied.

‘Yes,' Timothy said to Susan Stanton, ‘I remember you very well.'

‘Pleased to meet you,' Susan said.

‘How's the hedge fund business?' Michael asked.

‘Funny you should ask,' Timothy said. ‘That's exactly what Pinky and I are about to discuss. The brief answer – one word or less –
fantastic
. Isn't that right, Pinky?'

‘Sure,' Pinky said, agreeably.

‘That's great,' Michael Stanton said. ‘As soon as I put this unpleasantness behind me –' he waved his hands around vaguely, as if discussing the summer chigger problem here on the veranda – ‘I'll ring you up, and we'll talk about how I can chip into your fund.'

‘Terrific,' Timothy said. What he thought was: At Pelican Bay, there will be a lot of unpleasantness behind you.

‘Take care,' Michael said. He took Wife #2's hand and led her away. Over his shoulder, he called to Pinky, ‘Nice to meet you!'

‘Right!' Pinky said, mostly to his gimlet glass. Timothy noticed that he had finished the entire drink.

‘Let me get you another one,' Timothy said. He pulled a drink chit from the lucite stand in the center of the table and wrote his club account number. ‘Another vodka gimlet?'

‘That's sounds perfect, friend,' Pinky said. He looked flushed. Whether it was from the afternoon sun or the gimlet, Timothy was unsure. Timothy wrote down the words ‘VODKA GIMLET' and waved the card in the direction of a young waiter.

The waiter appeared, read the card. ‘Right away, Mr. Van Bender,' the young man said. He turned to leave.

‘Make that a double,' Pinky called to him. Then, pointing at Timothy: ‘He's driving, you know.'

‘Yes, sir,' the waiter said. He hurried off to the bar.

The two men sat quietly for a moment, watching the polo game. Two players rode into the corner of the field, chasing the ball. They hooked their wooden mallets in the air, and they tangled like umbrellas in a Manhattan wind. Then another green player rode up from behind and knocked the ball forward. The spectators clapped.

After a moment, Pinky said: ‘Let me tell you the reason I'm here.' It seemed to Timothy that the gimlet had loosened him up a little. He sat hunched in his chair, squinting into the sun. From the polo field came cheers from scattered spectators, then a thwack, and then an umpire's whistle – the green team scored.

‘By all means,' Timothy said.

Pinky said: ‘As you know, Timothy old man, I've been one of your biggest supporters. How much did I invest in Osiris, when you started it?'

‘Twenty-four million,' Timothy said. He had a bad feeling about the way the conversation was heading.

‘Twenty-four million!' Pinky agreed, loudly. ‘Twenty-four million dollars. That's a lot of confidence, I hope you know.'

‘I do appreciate it, Pinky. Your support means a lot to me.'

‘I know it does. That's why I wanted to talk to you in person. I didn't want my accountant to call you, and I didn't want to do this over the phone.'

‘Do what over the phone?'

‘Timothy, you know I've been very happy with your fund's returns. They've been excellent. If I was ready to sit on my laurels and collect interest, I'd keep my money riding on you.'

The waiter arrived with the second vodka gimlet. Before he could lay it on the table, Pinky intercepted the drink and took it from the waiter's hands. ‘Here you are,' Pinky said to the waiter, prying the drink loose. A true business person, Timothy thought – always cutting out the middleman.

Timothy said, ‘It sounds like you have other uses for your money.'

‘That's exactly right!' Pinky cried out, excitedly. ‘Exactly right!' Twenty yards away the Stantons, seated at another table, looked up at the strange ruddy guest in green pants and pink shirt, as he called out, sloshing his gimlet in his glass. ‘That's what I want to say, old friend. That I have other uses for the money.' He enunciated the words slowly, as if he liked that particular turn of phrase. ‘You see, I intend to put together one last deal – one last LBO. I need to scrape together all available cash in order to do it. This will be our biggest one yet.'