Read The Gods of Greenwich Online
Authors: Norb Vonnegut
The Gods of Greenwich
For my mom and dad
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First things first. Thanks to everyone who read and enjoyed
Top Producer.
You made
The Gods of Greenwich
possible.
Scott Hoffman is my agent and friend. This book would not exist without his sage advice and the support of Folio Literary Management—including Celeste Fine, who’s been scouring the world for buyers of the foreign-language rights. Scott introduced me to my publicist, Newman Communications, where I’m in the capable hands of Mark Ratner and Tess Meyer.
Pete Wolverton is a superstar. He edited this book and made it much, much better. So did Anne Bensson, who is an assistant editor and rising talent at Thomas Dunne/Minotaur/St. Martin Press (“SMP”). I am grateful to the entire crackerjack team at SMP, including Sarah Melnyk, who is fielding a bazillion e-mails from me these days.
I have great friends, who are tireless champions. Frankly, it’s a long, long list, and I can’t mention everyone. Otherwise the heft of additional pages would turn this book into a doorstop. That said, I am grateful to: Alex Witt, Anita Rosner, Bob Grady, Bob Butler, Brooks Newmark, Cam Burns, Charles Bryan, Chris Eklund, Dewey Shay, Cal Shook, Dorothy Flannery, Duncan Andrews, Jan Andrews, Eric Starkman, Eugene Matthews, Faye Hanson, George Bradt, Greg Farrell, Gwill York, Paul Maeder, Jack Bourger, Selena Vanderwerf, Jenny McAuliffe, Tony McAuliffe, John Edelman, Suzie Edelman, Jon Ledecky, John Thompson, Kathleen Campion (my new best friend), Kim Morse, Mark Director, Marlon Young, James Mason, Matt Arpano, Missy Attridge, Pug Ravenel, Susu Ravenel, Peter Raymond, Peter L’Green, Vicki L’Green, Scott Malkin, Steve Murphy, Tad Smith, Caroline Fitzgibbons, Thalia von Maur, Peter von Maur, and Tim Scrantom, who is my go-to guy on many fronts—especially idea generation and endless amusement. I also have many new friends who are authors, and I would like to thank them for their warm support and guidance.
Research played a big part in
The Gods of Greenwich.
Thanks to Brad Bailey, who taught me a thing or two about mitochondrial DNA. Dave McCabe and Cort Delaney are the lawyers I call to discuss trust and estate law. Shawn Bookin helped with finance jargon. Peter Gill guided me on wine. So did Kevin Kingston and his team at Station Plaza Wine, which is a great place to examine the details, if you know what I mean. Speaking of wine, it’s quite possible that oenophiles will notice a few things. I welcome your e-mails because it’s always great to hear from readers. But I know, okay? I know.
Time for a little personal background. When I was a kid, my family sat around the dinner table talking about our days. The anecdotes were usually nonfiction—although one could never tell in our house. I write, in part, because telling stories is something we’ve always done. Thanks to: Marion Vonnegut, my mother and the force behind Jimmy Cusack (the tough kid you’ll meet in
The Gods of Greenwich
); Micki and Jack Costello; Helene Vonnegut and Chris Nottingham; Wendy and Joe Vonnegut; and my dad, who could not be here, but remains an inspiration to all of us.
I could not have written this novel without the indefatigable support from Mary—my wife, my love—and our children, Wynn and CoCo. I’d like to tell you a story about how the four of us sat around one afternoon, what we said that found its way into this novel. But I suppose the story needs to wait until we meet in person. And I do hope we get to meet, whether it’s at a bookstore, some public event, or your book club.
Enjoy
The Gods of Greenwich
.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
DECEMBER
11, 2007
“I want my money.”
Jimmy Cusack gazed out the window of his office in the Empire State Building. Most days he savored the southern view of downtown Manhattan. To the east was Goldman Sachs, its Broad Street headquarters an impregnable fortress in the world of finance. To the west was Lady Liberty, her harbor a vast cluster of skyscrapers rising from the sea. New York was a city that attracted great fortunes—and epic brawls to manage them.
There were times inside his hedge fund when Cusack could taste the adrenaline. He reveled in the rush of competitors waging war from their granite towers, new-age monuments that celebrated the triumph of capital. There were no cease-fires sixty-one floors below. The struggle to win clients never stopped, and the ethos was “Kill or be killed” among soldiers suited in the battle rattle of Armani pinstripes and Gucci loafers.
Today was no ordinary day. Those four words, “I want my money,” haunted Cusack’s thoughts. Gone was the crooked smile. The creases around his lips, sometimes mistaken for a good-natured smirk, had long since vanished. His eyes a bitter blue, Cusack’s face resembled the dark clouds outside his bluff of sixty-one stories.
The ambush was cold and ruthless. “Here’s how it is,” the lead investor said. “Tomorrow morning, James, you’ll get a FedEx. Not the afternoon delivery, but the one at ten. Inside are eight redemption notices. Each one is signed and notarized, ready to go. I want my money. So do my friends who invested in your fund.”
“Who else wants out, Caleb?”
“Everybody I put in.”
“Not Whitney,” insisted Cusack.
“Yes.”
“What about Gould?”
“Everybody,” Caleb repeated. “By my calculations, our stake totals one hundred and twenty million dollars.”
“You agreed to a lockup,” argued Cusack. “We’re talking eighty-five percent of what I manage and—”
“My lawyers say your documents are a joke.”
“You talked to Ropes and Gray?”
“What difference does it make? Just get us our money, James.”
“That the way it is?” Cusack sounded hard, but he was wobbling inside.
“My hands are tied.”
“Yeah. To an ax.”
“I may run for governor,” said Caleb. “I can’t ask my buddies for contributions, not when they’re losing their shirts at Petri Dish Capital or whatever the hell they call your hedge fund.”
“And you think pulling your money is smart in this market?”
“Not open for discussion.”
Nearly six hours had passed since then. The markets were closed. The sun was setting. And Cusack racked his brain for a Hail Mary solution, a glimmer of hope, anything to save his business from redemptions that would leave him with less than $20 million to manage.
It could take years to replace $120 million from Caleb and his fellow deserters. Until then, revenues from the remaining $20 million would not pay the light bill. Cusack had no cash left to fund operations. He had gone “all in,” Texas Hold ’Em style, every chip in the pot.
With the grim reality of Caleb’s words unfolding, Cusack lacked his characteristic focus. His thoughts drifted from New York’s office towers to the “Irish battleships” of his youth, the three-family homes of Somerville, Massachusetts.
Jimmy had always been the scrappy kid with promise. Long ago he traded membership in Somerville’s blue-collar CIA—Catholic, Irish, alcoholic—for a career on Wall Street. He was thirty-two and Ivy educated, a graduate of Columbia and Wharton. His pedigree included a one-year Rotary Fellowship in Japan and five years at Goldman Sachs. He was his family’s hope for the future, the son, the entrepreneur his parents had backed.
Those were yesterday’s dreams. Cusack’s money-management business was going down. It was taking on water through a
Titanic
-sized hole in the hull, the lead investor’s words tearing at him still. “Nothing personal, mind you.”
Caleb, you made it personal.
“And we expect you for Christmas dinner, James.”
CHAPTER TWO
WEDNESDAY
,
DECEMBER
12
The following night a biting wind roared down the street named Hverfisgata. It gusted through doors and windows, through all the nooks and crannies of the stark buildings that lined the street. The air smelled of salt and sea and the damp wrath of Arctic squalls. The windchill registered icebox-cold under the dark Icelandic sky.
Seeking cover, three Americans from Connecticut ate dinner inside Hverfisgata’s 101 Hotel. The men relished their hiatus from the trading floors of Greenwich, where drip bags of gloom emptied into the markets. Their trip to Reykjavik was no boondoggle. The three had focused on business all week.
Their back-to-back meetings, insufferable at times, resembled a funeral procession of Icelandic bankers and low-ranking bureaucrats. The marathon tête-à-têtes about liquidity and leverage were benumbing. But they paid off. The fieldwork confirmed their instincts and gave shape to a scheme that had been percolating for months.
Hafnarbanki, Iceland’s most celebrated bank, was vulnerable to financial attack. Headquartered ten miles south of Reykjavik, the bank had borrowed $45 billion. It was too much debt, more than twice the size of Iceland’s entire economy. Much of that $45 billion came from overseas. If European depositors lost confidence and closed their accounts, Hafnarbanki would collapse under the weight of its financial obligations. It was a bank on the brink.
All it needed was a little push.
Not one of the men discussed their scheme, not at first, not during the main course of bloody lamb. They were pros, wizened hedge fund veterans, and far too wily for premature celebrations. Counting money jinxed trades. Backslapping was gratuitous. But they could taste each other’s silent dreams. They could almost touch the expectations of a sure thing that would net them tens of millions.
It was not until after dinner that the three relaxed, after a $15,000 “vertical tasting” of 2001, 2002, and 2003 Screaming Eagle cabernet sauvignon. After the wine located self-control switches on two men. After a conga line of port chasers turned all three faces beet red. They split the tab and moved to the hotel’s sleek bar, where conversation turned to their business in Iceland.