Now, Arthur had also loved his wife. They had fallen in love when he was twenty and she was seventeen, but, unlike the Harrisons, they were not married until several years later (and for that occasion, Sam had made Arthur a new morning coat for free). Without question, that had been the happiest day of Arthur’s life. As he said his vows, his voice cracked and he wept. He and Maria (pronounced with a long “i”) had been married for sixteen years, and he loved her throughout all that time and he loved her now. But she had died of cancer at age forty (at her most beautiful, Arthur and others believed). As he had been purely happy on his wedding day, so he was in pure despair on the day that Maria died. If the sun had burnt out and the seas dried up, Arthur might have been mildly troubled. Maria’s death made him distraught.
The person who best understood what had happened to Arthur was Sam Harrison. “It’s a tough break, kid,” Sam had said. Arthur had trembled.
“You know, Sam,” he had said hoarsely, “I have to travel a lot. The worst thing about it was always leaving her. But it was almost worth it because of how wonderful it was to see her again.” Arthur had been unable to speak for a moment. “Now I won’t see her again.” He had looked at Sam and saw the loose skin under his chin quiver and his eyes, each studded with a mole at the lower lid, begin to water. Sam held Arthur’s arm. “Yeetgadal v’yeetkadash sh’mey rabbah,” he had whispered. “B’olmo d’vero keerutey.” Arthur had not understood the words, nor had he fully grasped the significance of an atheistic Marxist’s uttering a prayer, but he appreciated the sentiment.
Sam and Arthur had always talked about Miriam and Maria, and they continued to long after Maria’s death. Years later, Arthur would ask Sam about Miriam, and Sam would grin and say, “Well, the other day …” But he would pause and look at Arthur, who would look back at him in the three-way mirror. Then Sam would say, “You’re still thinking about her.” And Arthur would say yes, and he would tell Sam some memory he had recently had about Maria—the soup in Madrid, her salamander brooch.
Maria was dead. They had had no children; Arthur himself had been an only child. His father was dead and now old Sam Harrison was dead. Arthur rose and looked out the window. The rising sun gave the rain clouds a dull glow. More cars had appeared. In a typical office building, even on a floor at this height, you could hear traffic, especially the slithering sound of tires on wet asphalt; typically, on a stormy day on a floor this high, the wind created spooky sonic reverberations and the building actually swayed. Arthur’s office was different. He heard no traffic or wuthering wind, and he felt no swaying. In his office, all was quiet, still. From his vantage he could see a dozen other buildings, and he thought about all the people who would soon be arriving for work. They constituted a lot of energy, activity money. A lot of life. Arthur did not wonder what it was all for. It seemed obvious to him what it was all for. His own life was busy and full. He had good friends; his mother was still alive and he was close to her. But he felt heavyhearted and alone.
A few hours later on that same June morning, a meeting was taking place on the fifty-ninth floor of the Beeche Building. It was in the small conference room, the one with no windows. One of the participants in the meeting, indeed its central figure, was a young man named Peter Russell. Peter was thirty-two years old; he had been working for Beeche and Company since his graduation from college, and he had advanced nicely. Despite the doubts he sometimes entertained about the value of his work, he had enjoyed it, he had enjoyed his success, and he had enjoyed his high pay.
On this morning, though, Peter was quite unhappy. In fact, he was at this moment the unhappiest he had ever been during his entire time at Beeche. The meeting, which he had gone into with enthusiasm, had become a savage, grotesque spectacle in which he was the victim. His tormentors had poured hot lead down his throat, cut off his private parts and stuck them in his mouth, and now, while he was still alive, they were tying each of his limbs to four different horses before sending the horses galloping off in four directions. Peter had fixed his face with an interested, wry expression while he listened to his colleagues, but he knew he was blushing bright red and that he was fooling no one. He felt sweat trickling down from his armpits.
It had all come about like this. A few weeks earlier, after a couple of his patrons had been shifted to different offices around the world, Peter had found himself working for a boss whom he didn’t know well. The things he’d heard about Gregg Thropp were not encouraging. Thropp was a short, stocky fellow, and he displayed all the Napoleonic traits so common among those of his physical type. He was driven, ambitious, self-important. When he walked, he moved his stubby legs so fast that even the long-legged had to work to keep up. Peter could see for himself that Thropp was insulting and rude to those below him. Others had warned him that Thropp was a devious, lying, backstabbing worm.
Yet toward Peter, Thropp hadn’t acted badly at all. To the contrary! Thropp had treated Peter with courtesy. He’d shown Peter respect in meetings. He’d given Peter credit when it was due him and encouraged and praised him, calling him “Champ.” Oh, sure, sometimes he could be pretty blunt, but it was hard to see what was so bad about Gregg Thropp. Peter had come to trust Thropp so much that he even went into Thropp’s office one day to show him something that had made Peter especially proud. He had played an important part in a couple of notably profitable transactions that had come to fruition when he was working for Thropp but that had been initiated previously. On this day Peter had discovered a small square envelope in his interoffice mail; inside, there was a handwritten note from Arthur Beeche himself! The note read as follows:
Dear Mr. Russell,
Please accept my congratulations on your fine work in the reinsurance and Italian bond matters. Well done!
Yours very truly,
Arthur Beeche
P.S. I hope you will join us soon for one of our entertainments.
Well, as one might imagine, Peter had been bowled over. A personal note from Arthur Beeche! What was more, it looked as if Peter was in line to receive an invitation to dinner at Beeche’s house. Arthur entertained often, and his dinners were legendary for the quality of the food and drink and for the glamour of the guests. A few people from the firm were usually included, and to receive your first invitation was an important honor. You were supposed to act nonchalant about it, but Peter had been so amazed and pleased that he’d taken the note into Thropp’s office and showed it to him.
“Well, well, well!” Thropp had said. “The Champ scores!” He had stood up and begun to lift and lower his arms in front of him, an absurd-looking motion for one so short. “Come on! The wave! The wave!” Thropp did this a few times before he started laughing too hard to continue. When he had recovered, he had looked at Peter earnestly.
“I’m proud of you, Peter,” Thropp had said. “I really am. One thing you can sure say about Arthur Beeche is that he has his eye out for talent. You’ve done good work and you deserve to be noticed. Congratulations.”
Thropp had held out his hand and Peter shook it.
“When I’m working for you,” Thropp had continued, “and it looks like that’ll be any day now, you won’t screw me, will you?”
They had both laughed.
Thropp wasn’t such a bad guy!
A few days later, Thropp had wandered into Peter’s office, looking thoughtful. “Say, Peter,” he had said, “you know your idea about securitizing home equity? I’d like to have a meeting on it.”
“Really?” said Peter. “But, God, it’s such a big thing, and it was just something I was fooling around with. I don’t think it’s anywhere near ready for a meeting.”
“Oh, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Just Huang, Kelly, Matt, you know, people like that.”
“But—”
“I’ve been thinking about it. There are a lot of possibilities. Let’s kick it around. Be a good thing for the team. Get some juices going.”
So it had been agreed that in a