could sell off most of our short bonds and commercial paper, some of our equities. Raise twenty million. Draw another couple million on our credit lines if we had to.”
“Dimitri, have we pre-sold any of those Bangkok Commercial bonds yet?”
In the thick Latvian accent that adhered to his English, Dimitri drawled, “Maybe ten million.”
“What if you put on a fire sale this afternoon?”
“Maybe another ten million. Not more. We’d need about three or four more months after March tenth to sell off a full hundred million. That’s why we could only do this with a massive credit line.”
“Well, that about settles it.” Kyle caught my eyes venomously.
It took all of my concentration to retain my balance and return his lethal stare.
In the stony quiet, with transparent ceremony, Kyle rose. “Please, all of you, listen very carefully. And, as of this minute, everything I’m about to tell you is absolutely confidential. The Securities Commission will prosecute you for insider trading if you act on any of it.”
Kyle waited for our sketchy gestures of assent.
Kyle cleared his throat, bit back a burp on his morning coffee. “This was to be my year to retire. So we’ve been working on a merger to sell out to a major bank. To cash out the equity of all the founding shareholders and leave our remaining partners and staff with a clean start.”
I was quickest to register, thirstiest for response. “Which bank?”
“That’s why Ted’s here,” Kyle replied.
In unison, we swung our attention to the side of the room.
Dwyer settled back, masterfully drawing us in. Straightened his shoulders. “Atlantic Laurentide.”
We waited for more details.
“At Kyle’s request, I approached Atlantic a few months ago. Got them to agree on the numbers. And I’ve since been building a case for Senate approval and to smooth things over with the Securities Commission. We’d have everything cleaned up for late this year.”
Listening to Dwyer explain it, I recognized, absolutely, like an approaching toll gate, the unfolding logic.
“Now that’s going to have to change.” Ted Dwyer ran his tongue around his gums as if burnishing his articulation. “I don’t have to tell any of you that the Securities Commission will never allow this firm to be muscled into the brink of receivership by any foreign bank, including Amsterdam Bank.”
“And,” Kyle asserted, “I’m not about to walk out the door and be tarred for the rest of my life for one botched deal. Nor am I about to stand by and see this company come out on the short end of the stick from Amsterdam Bank to the tune of ten or twelve million bucks.”
Ted Dwyer made an overt gesture of open palms with exaggerated shrug to indicate that there was nothing more to say. “So it’s obvious. You clean up things before you pay for the bonds. Or you go on the block. And we sell you to Atlantic Laurentide.”
“That gives us until March tenth, Paris. Three piss-poor weeks,” Kyle repeated, shaking his head in grim admonishment.
The discord in Kyle’s claim rekindled our recent grudges.
“You can’t be so sure,” I charged. “The Securities Commission. Stepping in to shut us down. We’re not some huge multi-national securities brokerage firm with offices all over the world. We’re just a small investment bank with our fingers in a minor international deal.”
“The banking and finance committee in the Senate sees it differently,” Dwyer told me pointedly. “Sure, we’re not London or New York. I agree. As far as the international markets go, we’re still some backwater farm team. Even Malaysia and Indonesia are better because, despite all their graft, they’ve at least got some action pumping away all the time. But what is it they always say in this country, Paris? Everybody in Canada hates Ontario. And everybody in Ontario hates Toronto. And everybody in Toronto hates Bay Street. And that’s because, at least in this country, we’ve got the goddamn money. So this is the price we pay. We live in a fish bowl with the regulators watching our every move.”
I made it obvious that I would not believe sight unseen.
Dwyer laid it out with prickly inflection. “The banking and finance committee is not about to ever let any bank or insurance company in this country fail and undermine public confidence in our finance industry. Biggest or smallest. Makes no difference to them. They are not about to let one ounce of public confidence, domestic or international, leak away.”
Watching them as they waited for my response, I squinted suspiciously into midday sunlight that poured in abundantly from the wide windows behind Kyle. Watched their movements and expressions for evidence of disagreement. Waited for them to speak with any trace of indecision. Strove to dilute their authority.
Ted Dwyer pushed himself to his feet with a refined groan, hobbled over to the corner of Kyle’s desk, his elderly eyes glassy and serene, and signalled an end to the discussion with an adept twist of his wrist to check his snug gold watch.
The meeting was concluded. I had lost their confidence. I had lost their respect. And I had lost their support. Inside myself, in a place where I could not deceive myself with my own indignation, I was forced to recognize that.
But I also knew, and had always known in that same place within myself, that I must reclaim the deal that had been stolen from me by BSA’s forfeit to Amsterdam Bank. Regardless of my ambivalent posturing during the meeting, I knew I had no other choice. I must redeem myself, somehow, if not to salvage my career from indelible misfortune, then simply because I could not endure the least splinter of further loss. It was, I sensed, taking all I had to travel through each day to its tattered close. Morning to night, my stamina was melting like thin ice, unable to outlast even the weak winter sun.
“Well?” Kyle inquired.
“Well,” I replied. I held in my objections, grinding down on them with my back teeth, waiting for Kyle and Ted to advance into the open, pronounce their penalty, expose their menace.
“Well, my friend,” Dwyer declared, “looks like you’re going to have to get us some straight answers out of Bangkok and Singapore.”
“Because you think I can change their minds?”
“No,” Ted Dwyer asserted dryly, “because the Securities Commission will be demanding them. And when they’ve got you in their sights for a couple of indictments for slipshod transactions that’ve bankrupted this firm, you better have something very convincing to say in your own defence or you could be looking at a couple of years in prison.”
* * *
Retreating behind my closed office door, I tried to heed the demands of my circumstances.
Like some stranger from outside the firm, I listened to the scraps of comments from colleagues as they passed by in the hallway. Their usually familiar voices seemed displaced, louder. Their babble swelled in my brain like a siren.
