‘I’m too young. I’ve got too many mistakes I haven’t made yet. Enlightenment is for people who’ve grown tired of their mistakes.’
‘What about people who never make mistakes?’ asked Honoria ironically.
‘They don’t need enlightenment,’ countered Kim. Then she smiled. ‘Only friends.’
Mr Battle and Mr Namamuri, who had shown little interest in the subject of enlightenment, were now both standing.
‘Ah, gentlemen,’ said Mr Battle. ‘Enough of this frivolity. If you would be kind enough to bathe and, uh, get dressed, Mr Namamuri and I would like to have a chat in the library. There’s a Jacuzzi down by the pool, Mr Akito, but – in half an hour if you don’t mind’ – this last directed to me as if I were the only one who might be delinquent.
With that he marched off with his older guest, and Akito and I, mere vice presidents, scurried off to do as we were bid.
Mr Battle’s ornate study had ceiling-high bookcases on two whole walls, an impressive map of the world filling the third wall, and floor-to-ceiling windows on the fourth. As far as I could tell, Mr Battle himself rarely entered this room except to impress certain visitors. His actual working study was a smaller room near his bedroom which contained only quotron machines, stock tables and tax guides. Whenever I’d seen him in the formal study the old man liked to stare with quiet dignity at the rows of books, as if he might absorb their contents without actually bothering with reading. When I once asked him what books he had in his library, he’d turned and gazed at me for a long moment with his usual dignity, and replied: ‘Hardcover.’
After Hawkins brought some brandy Mr Battle offered everyone a cigar, only the older Japanese accepting. I was baffled about what this meeting with the Japanese was all about. Mr Battle was the principal owner of the privately-held firm of BB&P and as far as I knew was not interested in selling any of his interest.
‘Gentlemen,’ he began, standing with dignity in front of his giant wall map of the earth as if he were Patton about to outline his latest offensive. ‘I believe we may be able to help each other.’
It was indicative of Mr Battle’s isolation from the common men of Wall Street that he was clearly unaware of the ancient joke that had been going around for months that Ivan Boesky always used this classic line as a preface to his requests for illegal insider information. The two Japanese bankers, sunk as deeply into huge cushioned chairs as I was, stared back at the grinning Mr Battle with their usual classic inscrutability.
‘We need capital and you need our expertise,’ Mr Battle went on. ‘In particular in the area of futures trading. Although our dollar volume may be below that of other firms, I can say with pride that Mr Rhinehart here is at the cutting edge of futures trading, a man with vision and discipline, an asset for which other firms have envied us for years.’
I doubted that more than a handful of people on Wall Street had ever heard of Larry Rhinehart, and BB&P’s futures trading operation was so small Merrill Lynch would probably account for it under ‘misc. operations’ and ‘petty cash’ Would the Japs fall for this line?
‘Your bank,’ Mr Battle continued, pacing with slow dignity back and forth in front of the huge map, as if plotting the final outcome of a world war, ‘wants access to a futures trading operation. We have one of the best. It is time to talk.’
Indeed.
Akito, dressed with almost unrealistically neat elegance, cleared his throat. Mr Battle looked at him politely.
‘We would like to speak with Mr Rhinehart alone for a few moments if you could be so kind,’ he said, then smiled and bowed his head slightly.
A flicker of doubt crossed Mr Battle’s face before it was replaced with a smile.
‘Of course, of course,’ he said. ‘Although, although …. Of course!’
As we all stared at him expressionlessly Mr Battle looked a trifle upset at being kicked out of his own study, but with one final ‘Of course’ he turned and strode with dignity from the room. As baffled as he, I sipped at my brandy and hoped I looked inscrutable.
As soon as the door closed with the minutest of dignified ‘thumps’, Akito rose, strode to the window and stared out a brief moment at the glorious gardens. I couldn’t get over how Western Akito seemed; only his smooth olive complexion and slightly slanted eyes and inevitable collection of small bows identified him as Japanese. Otherwise, he was too large a man, too athletic, too handsome, and too interested in Kim to be a stereotypical Oriental. As I stared, the man suddenly wheeled and addressed me with a small bow and slight smile.
‘Why do you gamble with your firm’s money?’ he asked softly.
My inscrutability, if it ever existed, was now shattered.
‘Gamble?’ I managed to reply.
‘You risk your firm’s money but guarantee profits to the clients. You can lose, the client cannot. Since no one can predict the direction of markets, you are gambling.’ Although Akito again bowed slightly and was still smiling, the content of his words was like an artillery barrage. I could feel myself flush.
‘Gamblers always lose,’ I now snapped back. ‘You may have noticed that I do not.’
‘True,’ said Mr Akito. ‘and we wish to know why you do not.’
‘Why?’ I echoed, again baffled. ‘Because I know what I’m doing. I use systems which –’
‘Excuse me,’ interrupted Mr Akito, ‘but systems are bullshit. Systems do not work. Systems are gambling.’
He marched towards me across the deep carpet, his shiny narrow shoes sinking deeply in, as if he were crossing a lush lawn, and stopped a few feet away. Didn’t the man know that the Japanese hate confrontation, hate directness, believe in saving everyone’s face?
‘We have noticed how in your trading when one of your trades loses money it seems to be always relatively small amounts,’ Akito continued. ‘But then every now and then you put larger sums into a trade and inevitably it seems these trades turn out to be profitable. We are alone now. We wish to know how you manage to avoid losing.’
Damn him! What the hell is he driving at!?
‘By hard work, damn it!’ I wanted to shout. And then I suddenly felt a quiet burst of joy: the bastards must really think I’m something if they suspect I must have a secret formula. Or did they think I was cheating in some way? Were they actually asking how I cheated?
I relaxed and let a quiet smile appear on my never inscrutable face.
‘A lot of people would pay a lot of money to know the answer to that question,’ I announced.
Akito, towering with un-Japanese bulk, looked down at me with intense scrutiny.
‘Yes,’ he finally said. ‘I believe they would.’ He continued to look down at me.
‘My official answer,’ I went on, ‘is that I have a knack for using some of the many technical systems for entering and leaving markets and for determining the amount of capital I put at risk for each trade.’
‘Yes,’ said Akito,‘a knack.’ He turned briefly to Mr Namamuri, who was sunk so low in his easy chair and was so engulfed in cigar smoke that when I first followed Akito’s gaze I thought it was a pile of smouldering rags with two shiny shoes attached. A voice miraculously emerged from the smoke.
‘We interested in buying your “knack”,’ the old man said, his round face and thick glasses emerging briefly from the haze, then fading.
‘But not,’ said Akito, turning to stare down at me again, ‘without having a clearer idea about what it is.’
But it was only a knack! A lot of damned hard work, some sharp brains, and a knack! I managed to meet Akito’s blank gaze with my own nearest equivalent.
‘Perhaps