Ghosts of Manhattan: A Novel(7)

It occurs to me that half this guy’s job description is to be the hired goon hazing new guys and telling inside-the-NFL stories.

He’s laughing, so I kind of smile but I’m not really happy and I smell like booze.

“Let’s get going. We’re going to meet some guys for drinks.” The goon’s name is Mark Sauter and he takes me back to the trading floor, where a few guys are standing or sitting on desks in a huddle. Rather than walk to the group, Mark chooses to start a conversation from the maximum distance. “Dave, we’re all set! You guys ready?”

Dave and the group get up and close the distance between us. “Good. Let’s go to Lucky Strike.”

We take the elevator down and Dave, one other trader, and I get into a hired Town Car. The other guy is Sam Curry. I had an unremarkable interview with him the day before. He is average-looking in almost every respect except that he is older than the rest. Even adjusting for the years of booze, I’d guess he’s about fifty. With age usually comes seniority and respect, but I’ve learned with traders there’s a crossover point where age starts to signal weakness. Sam seems too old still to be doing this. It makes him seem desperate and I think he knows it, which makes him seem weaker and a little sad.

The others are off to some party, and Sam, Dave, and I take the car service to Lucky Strike, a restaurant and bar in SoHo. It’s not yet 5 p.m. when we get there. The opening room is small, with a bar on the right side and lounge tables on the left. The restaurant part is in a second room through a passage in the back wall and it’s a tiny room too. It feels like the kind of place that is somehow in style and a movie star with a baseball hat pulled low might come in at any time for a drink at the end of the bar.

We keep the bartender company while she fixes our drinks and cuts fruit to prep for the night. There’s no question she’s an aspiring model. Despite her long hair, perfect cheekbones, six-foot and size-two body, and the fact that I imagine her skipping through ankle-deep water on a beach in a bikini, she looks efficient and at home behind the bar. She gets our drinks almost gruffly, then knives through a batch of limes and lemons like a samurai, all of which makes her even hotter.

Dave and Sam are trying to be funny and flirty, and in the face of her aloofness they look like homeless children scrapping for a meal. I’m too bashful to say anything stupid in front of any of the three of them.

After enough punishment, Dave tells her to pick her favorite four appetizers and entrées to bring us. It seems like his way of declaring something about that relationship, and then he turns his attention to me.

“You’ll love living in New York. It’s a pain in the ass if you don’t have any money, but if you have some dough, it’s the biggest and best playground in the world. You interviewing at other banks?”

“No. Not yet,” I add, to sound a little more sophisticated about the process. I wouldn’t be interviewing at any banks at all if a buddy hadn’t called me to get down here.

“It comes down to people and culture. You want to be at a place with a good reputation but doesn’t take itself too seriously and treats people well. Goldman and Morgan are too uptight. You don’t want to surround yourself with a bunch of Harvard MBA jackasses. They were stealing each other’s library books back in school and they’re still the same douche bags. If they’re not trying to outsnob each other, they’re stabbing each other in the back. Bear might be a level down in reputation but we’re one of the best names on the Street and we have a good time. Plus, at Bear, traders are kings. Most of the money at this firm comes from sales and trading, not banking. And believe me, we make a hell of a lot of money.”

I don’t know enough about any of this even to ask a smart question. “I liked everyone I met. I even warmed up a little to that last guy, who dumped bourbon on me.” This is a white lie.

“Ha. You might have to put up with a little of that in the beginning, but it’s all fun. It’s all worth it too.”

“That’s right.” To this point I hadn’t thought about a salary number or getting rich quick. I was just feeling the stress that comes with not having any plan in my last year of college. Stress is always about not having a plan. All I want is something respectable, but I don’t know enough to want anything in particular or even to rule out anything in particular. Bear seems to answer all this plus makes me rich.

More people have come in and are filling the bar area. Dave and Sam are so obviously trying to pick girls up that it’s freaking girls out. A lot of invitations to their Hamptons house are made, which buys more conversation but ultimately doesn’t seem to be working. Dave turns to the bartender and tells her to do an hour of open bar for everyone on his credit card. Everyone in the bar shouts thank you and downs their drinks.

Someone turns the music way up and it gets hard to hear anyone more than an arm’s length away. We have to lean toward people to launch our words.

Sam flags over the bartender and plants his elbow on the bar top to pole-vault his head over the drink well. “I’ll give you two hundred dollars to turn down that music.”

“What?”

“I said I’ll give you two hundred dollars to turn down that music.”

She straightens up and smiles, then drops her well-used bar rag by his elbow. “You jerk-offs come in here with your comma comma bonuses and think you run the place. The music stays. You can stay or go.” She turns to the next person waving for her.