The King of Fear: Part Two: A Garrett Reilly Thriller Page 6

  MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, JUNE 18, 4:31 P.M.

  “Sir, Charlotte offices calling again.”

  Robert Andrew Wells Jr., CEO of Vanderbilt Frink Trust and Guaranty—known to most people around the country as Vanderbilt, and everyone on Wall Street as Vandy—grunted his displeasure as he marched down the hallway of the thirtieth floor of the bank’s headquarters, heading to the stairway. His assistant, Thomason, held a cell phone in the air, trailing after Wells. “They want to know—”

  “I know what they fucking want.” Wells banged the stairway door open and sprinted upstairs, two steps at a time. “They want permission. Everybody always wants permission.”

  Wells believed in entrepreneurship: you went out and did things. You didn’t ask for handouts. He believed in bootstrapping: no matter where you started in this life, in a backwoods shack or a rat-infested tenement, if you worked hard—dedicated yourself to whatever your heart’s deepest desire was—you would eventually get it. Call it force of will, the cult of personality, or just plain old American self-help, Wells bought the concept of the self-made man, hook, line, and sinker.

  He had no time or patience for people who sat around waiting for someone else to help them up the ladder—welfare recipients or bureaucrats addicted to the mother’s milk of the state or sniveling branch directors who wanted to cover their asses before trying something new. They would never achieve greatness, those people, because they didn’t understand that greatness came from within. It was never given to you. You had to fight for it. You had to earn it.

  Striding down the hall of the thirty-first floor, Wells basked in that notion. He had risen from the bottom floor up, fought his way through the company, and was now top dog, leader of the nation’s biggest bank. He was a master of the universe, a man with fabulous wealth and almost unlimited power—he was the 1 percent of the 1 percent, and all the world knew it.

  That Wells’s father—Robert Andrew Wells Sr.—had also been a banker did not put a dent in Wells’s philosophical bearings. Wells Sr. had not run an institution like Vandy. He had been a midlevel player at a small Midwestern savings and loan, hardly a stepping-stone to running an international conglomerate. To Wells’s mind, the distance between his father’s position and his own was equivalent to the distance a homeless person needed to travel to make something of his or her life; to get a job, for instance, as a teller in one of their fifteen hundred branches across the country.

  Yes, the government had helped bail Vandy out in 2008, backstopping their capital requirements with a massive loan from the Treasury Department, but Wells had seen to it that that loan was paid back swiftly, and with full interest. Vandy owed the US government nothing. At least, not right now. And never again.

  Anyway, those arguments were quibbles, and Wells had heard them all before. The press did not like Wells, nor did the political left. They were envious, to his mind, and had no conception of what Wells and his bank did for America—the lengths to which they went to make sure the wheels of capitalism kept grinding along. That was no small task. The press and the left hated capitalism, hated banks, and they hated Vandy. The last three days had proven that point beyond any doubt. All that Wells had read for the last seventy-two hours was how perilous the state of his bank was; how their capital reserves were low, their loans were bad, their investments were shit. And, of course, how their CEO was making things worse with his arrogance and spite.

  Wells let out a long hiss of breath and pushed open the door to the bank’s stock-trading floor. Thomason kept pace behind him, as did Stephens, the young woman from Boston. Those two assistants kept his schedule, manned his phones, and made sure he was up-to-date on everything that was happening in the world. Wells could not survive without his assistants, although one was probably enough to handle the job—but a second was nice. He was giving more people jobs, and that could hardly be called a bad thing.

  “Don’t bug me about Charlotte again today,” Wells barked.

  “Yes, sir,” Thomason said meekly.

  Wells took in the trading floor with a satisfied stare. The room was massive, stretching out almost the entire length of the building, jammed full of busy employees buying and selling shares in the nation’s—and the world’s—biggest and best companies. Phones rang, conversations were shouted, buy and sell orders blinked across myriad computer screens. The room buzzed with activity, roared with commerce, and oozed prosperity—even if the naysayers argued otherwise. The place gave him strength; the room proved to him that the American economy still had legs to stand on. The future was bright. He needed that feeling because, no matter how much he believed in himself, the last few days had given him a dark sense of foreboding.

  Wells marched across the room and caught, out of the corner of his eye, all the traders and analysts sneaking a peek at him. He was hard to miss, with his broad shoulders, head full of white hair, and his posse scrambling behind him like a pack of dogs. He liked that feeling—that people knew who he was and wanted to catch a glimpse of him. It wasn’t just that it made him feel important—it also proved that the bank still had a hierarchy, that even the lowest stock seller could aspire to be CEO one day. Could aspire to be the next Robert Andrew Wells Jr.

  Wells rapped on the metal doorframe of an office that fronted the trading floor. Aldous Mackenzie, the bank’s chief investment officer, looked up from his computer screen. Behind him, through the plate-glass window, midtown Manhattan and the East River were visible in the afternoon sun.

  “What’s the latest?” Wells asked, stepping into the room and motioning for his assistants to wait outside.

  Mackenzie shrugged. “More anxiety. Rumors about a toxic derivative coming out of our trading floor.”

  “That possible? Could we have missed it?”

  “Anything’s possible. But Christ Almighty, we paid twenty million dollars for that risk-analytics software. Thing is supposed to catch any bad bet, anywhere in the company. So . . . I’m saying no. We couldn’t miss it.”

  Wells closed the door behind him, then noticed a young man sitting on the couch opposite Mackenzie—Mackenzie’s assistant. Wells couldn’t remember his name, Benny something, but he stayed close to the CIO the way Wells’s assistants stayed close to him. “Could you give us a second?”

  The young man jumped to his feet and practically fled the room.

  “Our stock is getting hammered, Mac. Down another five points today. That’s fifty billion in market cap.”

  “I’m well aware.” Mackenzie, a large man, had a florid face and not a lot of hair left on his head. “It hasn’t traded over thirty in two years. Another five-point drop isn’t going to kill anyone.”

  “It might kill me. Or the press might kill me. Or some crazy woman with a pistol might walk up to me and blow my fucking head off.”

  Mackenzie didn’t laugh. He pushed away from his desk. “That’s why you have a bodyguard. And Steinkamp should have been using his.”

  “Who shoots a Fed president? What the fuck is wrong with the world?”

  “Is that why you’re here, Robert? To talk about Steinkamp?”

  “I’m here because volatility is through the roof, stocks are crashing, banks are dropping dead in Europe, and I want my chief investment officer to tell me that Vanderbilt Frink is too fucking big to fail.”

  “Come on. You know it. I know it.” Mackenzie put a hand on Wells’s shoulder and squeezed. “We’re fine, Robert. All our bets are in the black. We are a fortress, impenetrable.”

  “Too big to fail?” An ironic smile cracked Wells’s face.

  “Too smart to fail,” Mackenzie said, this time without the irony.

  Wells nodded a thanks, then stopped again at the door before leaving. “The Hamptons this weekend. Sally is cooking a roast. Should be good. We’ll drink bourbon on the beach.”

  “Deal,” Mackenzie said. “Bourbon on the beach.”

  NEWARK, NEW JERS
EY, JUNE 18, 6:42 P.M.

  Patmore returned with a bag full of new pills that evening. He gave them to Garrett without a word, and with no trace of condemnation in his face, for which Garrett was extremely thankful. He also gave Garrett $19 in change. Garrett considered tipping Patmore, but wasn’t sure how do to it without insulting him. Plus, he needed the cash.

  Later, around midnight, when some of the team had drifted off to sleep in the corners of the office, Garrett decided to sample the new meds. The pills looked like Percodans, but with black-market stuff you could never be certain. He took one and waited twenty minutes, but felt nothing, so he took another, and then, half an hour after that, two more. By two in the morning, he could no longer remember how many he’d taken, but he knew that his head didn’t hurt, and the walls of the office space no longer felt as if they were slowly, incrementally, closing in on him.

  He felt good again.

  At 2:30 a.m., Avery Bernstein strolled into the office suites, unbidden, with a yapping white bichon frise at his side. He motioned for Garrett to follow him and walked into an empty corner room. Garrett checked to see if anyone else was awake—no one was—and padded after Avery, closing the door behind him. He turned on a single desk lamp and faced his former boss, who was staring out the window, hands clasped behind his back like a general surveying a distant battlefield.

  “Something’s not right,” Avery said.

  “Yeah, no pets allowed in the building.” Garrett chuckled at his own joke.

  “Glib won’t get it done, Garrett. Sarcasm is a personality defect. You’re missing something. You’re not considering all the possibilities. I’m disappointed in you.”

  Garrett sighed. He hated to admit it, but he was happy to see his hallucination of Avery reappear. He considered, for a moment, that perhaps he had taken all that Percodan for that express purpose—to see Avery again. Or maybe not . . .

  “Don’t start that shit again.” Garrett ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s so tiresome.”

  Avery turned from the window to face Garrett. His white dog sat panting at his feet. “You are wasting your life, Garrett. Your God-given talents.”

  “I’m gonna have to call bullshit here—the real Avery would never say that.”

  “I’m pushing you. To be your most effective self. As I did when I was alive.”

  Garrett had to press his lips together hard to keep from crying. That was exactly what Avery had done when he was alive, and Garrett missed Avery’s fatherly advice. Avery believed in Garrett, more than almost anyone else on the planet, and had guided Garrett’s chaotic energy into places where it could be constructive, instead of disastrous. Day after day they had talked, first at Yale, where Avery tried to keep Garrett’s frenetic brilliance on target, and then a few years later in Avery’s corner office at Jenkins & Altshuler, where Avery would try to keep Garrett from ruining his career in spectacular fashion.

  “I am trying to find a man who is going to attack the American economy. How is that wasting anything?”

  “You’re having a conversation with a hallucination. Which means you are very high. Ergo, you are wasting your life.”

  “Fuck you. Seriously. Fuck your judgments, your money, your privilege—and your dog. I always hated that dog.”

  “My parents ran a pharmacy in East Flatbush. I’d hardly call that privilege. And my dog never hurt anyone.”

  Garrett stared at the dog. It sat in the corner, looking up at Garrett, tiny red tongue hanging out of its tiny white face. “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to think hard about the big picture. The big picture of your own life. I want you to straighten up, work harder. Apply your genius to the chaos and give it order. That’s why you were put on this earth. That’s what you do.”

  “I’m trying.” Garrett’s words came out almost as a plea.

  “No, you are not. Not really. You are going through the motions. You are not yourself.”

  Avery moved across the room toward Garrett, and Garrett’s heart thumped loudly. He pointed a finger at Avery. “You are not yourself. You’re a ghost, ergo, not yourself.” Avery was so close that Garrett could smell him; smell the cologne he wore, and the faint hint of old-man sweat around his collar.

  “Is that stoner logic? Because it’s idiotic.”

  “Chinese food,” Garrett said, ignoring Avery’s riposte. “That place on Tenth Avenue. We went every Sunday. You remember that? That was a nice ritual.”

  “Grief will not get it done. Move past it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I have nobody.” Garrett’s voice cracked slightly. “You left me.”

  “Don’t be a drama queen. I didn’t leave anyone. I was murdered.”

  Garrett winced. Avery had been murdered—murdered, most probably, because he’d been connected to Garrett, and Garrett was connected to Ascendant. A direct line of guilt went from Garrett Reilly to Avery Bernstein’s death, a line that led right to Garrett’s broken heart. All his problems—all his pain and his confusion and his addiction—they could all be traced back to the day Avery died, to the gaping hole that his absence left in Garrett’s psyche.

  “Because of me,” Garrett said. “You were murdered because of what I was doing.”

  “Now the self-pity? Come on. I was murdered because there are evil people out there who don’t care about human costs or consequences. Those people need your full attention, and they need your attention now.”

  “There’s no such thing as evil. There’s just people doing what works best for them.”

  “You don’t really believe that.”

  “Maybe I do.” Garrett raised his voice. “Maybe I believe self-interest trumps morality every time. Maybe I just want to be left alone.”

  “Grow up. Grow up and do what is required of you to make the world better.”

  “Of all the places I expect some sympathy, my own fucking unconscious would be top of the list!” Garrett yelled.

  “Garrett?”

  Garrett snapped his head around. The door was cracked open. Bingo peeked into the office. His eyes scanned the room. “You okay?”

  Words failed Garrett. He stood there, silent.

  “Who you talking to?” Bingo’s eyes landed back on Garrett, arms still raised over his head, midgesture.

  He dropped his hands to his side. “No one.”

  “I thought I heard yelling.” Bingo checked his phone. “It’s three in the morning.”

  Garrett glanced to where Avery Bernstein had been standing. He was gone, no trace of him left, nothing but empty space in the office. Garrett’s heart sank. “Kind of hard to explain.”

  “Okay. Maybe you should get some sleep. Or at least keep your voice down.”

  Bingo left the room, closed the door, and Garrett sank to his knees in a corner. He cursed himself, his addiction, and his neediness, and hoped he could keep it together long enough to extract himself from the hole into which he seemed to be sinking. He closed his eyes and began sorting passwords in his head, hoping he’d find one that led to Ilya Markov.

  NEWARK, NEW JERSEY, JUNE 19, 5:12 A.M.

  Bingo woke the team at 5:00 a.m. They gathered groggily in the conference room, sitting on the floor, backs up against the white walls. Bingo closed the door and they kept their voices down. Garrett was still asleep two rooms over, and Bingo wanted him to stay asleep.

  “I heard him at three in the morning. He was having a conversation with himself. I think he was hallucinating.”

  “I talk to myself all the time,” Mitty said. “Don’t mean I’m hallucinating.”

  “He was talking to someone. And that someone was not talking back. I listened for like five minutes.”

  “When you went into the room, did he seem strange to you, Bingo?” Alexis asked.

  “He seemed . . .”
Bingo considered his words for a moment. “He seemed scared. He seemed high.”

  “Do you know what kind of drugs he might have been taking?” Alexis asked.

  Bingo shook his head no, but then Patmore snapped out the answer: “Percodan.”

  Everyone in the conference room stared at the marine private, their faces suddenly alive with surprise and simmering anger.

  “He said his head hurt,” Patmore said. “He gave me money. So I went and bought them for him.”

  “When?” Celeste asked angrily. “When did you do this?”

  “Yesterday. I checked on Craigslist. There were a bunch of sellers. I walked. Not far. A guy at a corner market. Nice dude. Hindu. Or a Sikh or something. He sold me a bagful.”

  “How could you? You enabled a drug addict to get his fix,” Celeste said. “You’re as bad as the guy selling the drugs.”

  Patmore shrugged. “I don’t believe drugs should be illegal. Just my opinion. People are gonna do what they do. Who am I to stop them?”

  “Did I miss the sign on the door? Is this a fucking Ayn Rand convention?” Celeste said.

  “I just don’t see what the big deal is,” Patmore said. “And I have no idea who you are talking about.”

  “The big deal is that Garrett is high, and he may not be thinking straight,” Alexis said. “Especially if he’s hallucinating. We can’t have that. It’s too dangerous a situation.”

  “Look, Garrett’s always taken drugs,” Mitty said. “The whole time I’ve known him. He used to smoke more pot than anyone I know. Like every day, three, four times a day. Now he’s switched to scrips, which I admit isn’t like ideal or anything, but he’s still doing his job. I just think we should let it go.”

  “That’s nuts, Mitty,” Celeste said. “If you’re so high that you’re hallucinating, you’re not doing your job, and I don’t want to have anything to do with you. And I certainly don’t want you making life-or-death decisions for me or anyone I’m close to.”

  “Don’t be an uptight bitch,” Mitty said.