Ghosts of Manhattan: A Novel(71)

“Sure.”

“Dale’s a good guy.” His awkward probing for some link between Dale and me tells me the offer of a guaranteed contract didn’t originate with Joe. He’s as confused by it as I was a minute ago, and he wants to know where it came from.

“Great guy.”

“Yeah, great guy.” Joe hates not knowing the political map of the organization. There’s something driving decisions from the top about his team and he doesn’t know what it is. I’m enjoying his frustration. I feel empowered to start calling the shots.

“Well, Joe. Thanks for the talk and the offer. I need to get back upstairs to follow up on a few things.” He has a flash of annoyance that he missed the opportunity to end the meeting himself.

“Thanks, Nick. A few days.”

I do have some follow-up to do and I wonder if a few days is enough. I could put up with a lot of crap for seven million bucks. Maybe that’s enough then finally to leave things behind.





25 | THE NEWS


February 2, 2006

SOME KID WHO LOOKS LIKE HE WORKS IN THE BACK OFFICE walks up to my desk. “Are you Nick Farmer?” he asks in a tone of apology.

“I am.”

“Some guy outside asked me to bring you this.” He hands me a sealed envelope that has “Nick Farmer” handwritten on the outside in block letters.

“Okay, thanks.” I take it and release the kid by now ignoring him. I open the envelope and there’s a single page with a typed message:

Meet me at the deli on the corner of 56th and 2nd ASAP. I’ll be waiting inside.

F. C.

Freddie has lost his damn mind. I put the page back in the envelope and fold it up. I’ll throw it away in a trash can outside the building, just in case there’s a legitimate reason for this idiocy.

It takes me about ten minutes to get to the deli, which is a typical-looking New York convenience store. It isn’t the kind of New York–style deli that people who are not from New York think they should visit for real New York food. It looks like a tiny 7-Eleven that hasn’t been washed in years. I make a loop around the single island of shelving in the small store and see Freddie isn’t there. As I go to leave, Freddie appears in my path, blocking the door on his way in.

“Hey, Nick. Sorry, I wanted to see you go in first.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“Let’s move in to the back of the store.”

I let Freddie pull my sleeve. This is too weird to argue about yet.

“Bear Stearns has had me under surveillance.”

“You’re nuts. Don’t be a moron.”

He pulls out a tiny piece of black plastic.

“What’s that?”

“A bug. A listening device that I found in my apartment after they fired me.”

“That’s crazy. They would never try to pull something like that.”

“Sure they would. They just hire a private investigator to do it for less than five grand. The PI gets money from a third party and he wouldn’t even know he’s working for Bear.”

“You better be careful what you say then.”

“It’s late for that. There’s more.” Freddie looks sick.

“What?”

“They sent me a photograph.”

“Of what, Freddie? Don’t make me draw this out piece by piece.”

“It’s a compromising photo of me.”

“Sex?”

“Just before, but I’m meant to assume they have photos of that too.”

“Okay, so what? You should be pounding the table. You’re not married, so good for you.”

He looks away from me and at a row of cereals on the shelf. “With a man.”

I let this piece together through my history of knowing Freddie. Poor guy is in hell. “So what, anyway? Screw them.”

“I can’t have that find its way to my mom and dad. I just can’t even imagine that.”

We’re quiet for a while. “I’m really sorry, Freddie.”

He picks up with what seems to be the main point of coming to see me. “Did you read my full report to Dale?”

This should come as no surprise. “No.”

“I want you to understand exactly what happened. What the report means. They think you understand it anyway, so you should.”

“Are you putting me in danger?”

“I think you’re okay. At this point, having the information would protect you. Several people are already saying what I’ve been saying. Some hedge fund guys, even a senior trader at Deutsche Bank is saying anyone holding these positions is screwed. The only thing Bear cares about now is that nobody can point to a person inside Bear who was saying early on that Bear had the facts and knowingly pushed around toxic securities. That way they can just claim stupid instead of evil. I think either one is criminal, but they’d still prefer stupid.”

I’m pissed I’m getting deeper in this with Freddie, but there’s nothing else to do. “Fine, go ahead.”

“Here’s the sequence. The government passes legislation that facilitates and encourages every American to own a home. This may be the only well-intentioned piece of it. Well-intentioned but stupid because that set the table. Everything else is greed. Lenders start lending because that’s how lenders make fees and profits. They lend recklessly and irresponsibly. There’s a whole category of loan called a no-doc loan, meaning the borrowers didn’t show any documentation at all about how creditworthy they are. The lender just wrote the loan and charged a fee. So now you have a bunch of bad loans out there. Really bad.”