Trader Jack -The Story of Jack Miner (The Story of Jack Miner Series) (31 page)

I opened up the envelope and saw that she hadn't touched the money.

'This place isn't fit for my dog, let alone you.'

'Who do you think you are Jack?' said Martha in a soft, but angry voice. 'You think that money can buy me? Buy you control?'

'All I'm trying to say . . .'

'I don't need your charity, Jack. I don't want it. I like looking after Jazz. He's our friend, isn't he Pattie?'

The dogs were wagging their tails as she patted him: 'Nasty Jack, silly Jack.'

'Look Martha, I'm grateful to you. You've been good to Jazz. Just keep the money for a rainy day . . .'

'Look Martha, look Martha,' she said mimicking me, opening a big jar on the table and pulling out photographs and showing them to the dogs. 'Look at Jack! Quite a celebrity isn't he?'

Suddenly, something occurred to me: 'Was my ex-girlfriend here?'

'The red-haired one with a hard face? Yes, she was here. Came for a cup of tea. Was in tears. She said that you had dumped her. Had some photos of her. I let her take a look at them and she took some.'

'That's my private property, Martha. Why did you give them to her?' I shouted.

'Because they were hers, that's why!' Martha shouted back, trying to be heard over the din of dogs, who were now in a barking frenzy.

'They were mine and they're now in the News on Sunday!' I fumed, storming to the car, running back and throwing the paper on the table. Martha read the article and burst out laughing.

'You've made it Jack . . . The News on Sunday! You're a real celeb!'

The dogs wagged their tails, stopped barking and brushed against her. I couldn't help myself and began to laugh so much that I fell backwards on to the sofa. A loose spring jabbed my neck: 'Ouch!'

'That's you, Jack. A pain in the neck,' said Martha grinning.

I put the leads on the dogs and we ran to the Heath. Martha was Martha. How could I be angry with her?

*   *   *

I phoned Pearl several times but she didn't return my calls. So I went to her flat about 10pm that Sunday night. From the street, the lights were on and I could see that there was movement in the apartment. I rang her phone and her mobile. Again no answer. There was no way that Pearl could avoid me. I still had the outside door key. Luckily Pearl hadn't changed it and it worked. I rushed up the stairs and banged on the door.

'Pearl I know you're there. Open the door please!'

No reply. I banged again. This time the door opened. Before me stood a tall, well-built guy, with short blond hair. The same guy I had seen when I had brought Pearl flowers, during the spring a year ago. His grey eyes were cold. A gold chain was around his neck and he had a gold Rolex watch imbedded with diamonds.

'What do you want?' the man asked in a heavy Russian accent.

'I want to see Pearl. Is she here?'

'Let him in Yevgeny, he's Jack,' shouted Pearl from the bedroom.

I walked into the living room. A half-full bottle of champagne, two glasses and leftovers from a Chinese takeaway, were on the table. Pearl, her hair wet and with no make-up on, came out of the bedroom in a white gown. Through the open door of the bedroom, I could see an unmade bed with her clothes strewn on the floor. It did not require a stroke of genius to guess what had been going on. Even though we had broken up months before and she had spun against me, I was a bit jealous. I couldn't get rid of my feelings for her.

Pearl noticed me turn red and smiled wickedly. She introduced us casually.

'Yevgeny Faramazov . . . Jack Miner.'

We shook hands warily. Faramazov seemed familiar, but I had come across so many people, that I couldn't be sure that I had met him.

'Jack's the trader I told you about, Yevgeny. He's a good friend.'

'Oh yes,' said Faramazov with a suspicious look on his face.

'He's brilliant, Yevgeny. Maybe he could do something for you.'

Pearl was always on the lookout for opportunities. The only problem was that you were never sure whether she was genuine; whether she was working for the other guy. I had learnt a hard lesson.

'Thanks for the News on Sunday article, Pearl,' I said sarcastically, pulling the page out of my pocket.

'Can I read it?' asked Faramazov.

I passed it to him.

'I can't understand what Maffie and Ruff's romance has to do with me,' I said, doing my best to restrain myself. 'You are well aware that Maffie and I were just good friends.'

'That's exactly what they quoted me as saying,' said Pearl grinning.

'Very funny! Since when did you become my spokeswoman?'

'I thought that we still had an arrangement, Jack,' replied Pearl, naughtily fingering an emerald ring that I had bought her. Faramazov noticed and narrowed his eyes.

'Finished long ago, Pearl,' I hissed.

'Don't worry Jack, the paper's ready for fish and chips. You must admit that it does keep you in the public eye.'

'Come off it Pearl. I know how you network to build your business. You met Sheila Shellhoff at a party. She needed a story and I was a target.'

'Wrong again Jack. Sandra Ruffish is my client. She wants her money. You were the news peg.'

By now I was getting seriously agitated. I was tired and confused. Faramazov intervened.

'No point in weeping over wet milk,' he said, unsure of the idiom. 'Give me your address Jack. I'm having a party in the country next Saturday. You're welcome.'

I gave him the office address and left, wondering why on earth he was inviting me. Perhaps he was curious. Maybe he wanted to take Pearl's advice, get to know me and offer me a job.

*   *   *

Leash Grobnick was in one of his moods when I entered the office on Monday morning. Through the glass walls of his office I could see him having a go at Cy. He was gesticulating, walking up and down and shouting. Named after his Lithuanian grandfather Lazer, the young man decided that it would be more American and original if he changed his name to Leash. Little did Leash know that his employees would mockingly pull imaginary dog leads when they heard their boss bark like a vicious pit bull terrier. I had a fair idea why Leash was annoyed. He was complaining about the expenses for our trip and that Cy had not chased more potential investors. Cy, in fact, had raised a lot of money for Aquarium. We had twenty large investors, including two pension funds. The fund was now managing $600 million. Leash complained that Cy was behind budget. He wanted the fund to have a billion dollars by the end of summer. That meant road shows and more road shows. It would be a tedious treadmill.

Leash was brought up in New York. His father had worked in a sweatshop and the family of five were poor. He had pulled himself up by his bootstraps, selling clothes in markets, buying property cheaply and doing deals. Eventually he had enough money to start a fund management business. His childhood poverty had never left him. Money was everything. It kept him secure.

I knew all about Leash's tough childhood because of my meetings with him, Cy and Max. He never let them forget about his upbringing, saying that they were brought up with silver spoons in their mouths. He was constantly complaining, taunting them and pushing them. Leash was totally insensitive about people's feelings and humiliated his sons in front of me and other staff.

One day we were having a working lunch in the boardroom. Max was eating slowly.

'Slow eaters are slow workers,' sneered Leash. Max walked out. Max had recently decided to go back to New York. I thought that he wanted to get away from his Dad, who was spending more time in London. The real reason was that Max had a boyfriend who lived in Greenwich Village. He had kept it secret from Leash.

After his sons escaped to their own desks, Leash called me in with Aram. The News on Sunday was on his desk. I was hoping that Leash did not read the tabloids. Unfortunately Maisie, his secretary and girlfriend, enjoyed them.

'What's this all about, Jack?' snarled Leash. 'Our business is discreet, but here you are talking to the press.'

'If you read the story closely you'll see that they didn't speak to me,' I insisted. 'How could they? I was in Zurich.'

'Don't be insolent with me young man!' shouted Leash.

I was livid. I wasn't going to let him get away with it. No way was I going to be his whipping boy.

'Sure old thing,' I said smiling.

Leash, narrowed his eyes, looked straight at me and said nothing. I stared back at him, looking him right in the eye. Realising that it was pointless to fight me, he opened a file on our fund and started questioning our performance. Leash wasn't interested in medium and long term gains; whether the fund had risen over a year or two. The fund had to do well every month. If there were losses he would rant. Fortunately the fund was consistently in profit in the six months ended March.

'You can see that we've been positive. That's why we've got more investors,' said Aram, who nervously shuffled about when he spoke to Leash.

'The markets have been up and down, how did you achieve that?' asked Leash.

'Good trading,' said Aram, trying to smile. 'We're up 3.5 per cent in the past six months.'

'That's gross,' said Leash. 'Net it is around 2.7 per cent. Your investors won't be satisfied with that.'

Leash was referring to the large fees that we and other hedge funds charged investors. Each year investors had to pay a hefty 2 per cent annual management fee, whether the fund rose or fell. There was also a performance fee of 20 per cent on any gains of the fund. On the figures in the first half of the year, the net annualised gains after all the fees, were around 5.4 per cent. This was a profit, but given the risks of trading in the markets, the net return was not that much higher than interest on a secure government bond.

'Got any ideas, Jack?' asked Leash, taking off his glasses and looking me up and down.

'I've been on the road, Leash. I haven't been looking at our portfolio closely. But the market's been difficult and Aram has done OK'.

'That's for me to decide, young man,' he said. Grobnick was always patronising; always reminding me of my age.

'We should be getting another $100 million from the latest road shows,' I said. 'Max has a good program. It should help us find something that will make big money.'

'We'll put it in oil and natural gas,' said Aram.

'Oil I can understand, but why gas?' Leash asked.

'It's been depressed since 9/11. It's only around $3 a British Thermal Unit. Production can't keep up with demand. China and India are consuming huge amounts of energy and the war in Iraq has raised concerns about supply disruptions,' said Aram. 'It's only a matter of time before prices rise.'

'Check your charts and numbers, Jack,' instructed Leash. 'If you think gas and oil will run, we'll pull in more investors.'

I walked back with Aram to his working space. He looked dejected.

'Why do you let him push you around, Aram?' I asked sympathetically, keeping my distance. The halitosis was as bad as ever.

'Jack, I've got a wife, four kids at private schools and an expensive girlfriend. That costs a lot of money,' said Aram, sighing.

'Mistress? You wanna be like Ruff? Get into the News on Sunday?' I laughed. 'By the way, how come we haven't lost any money in the past two months?'

'What do you mean?' replied Aram defensively.

'From what I can tell, the shares and commodities that we've been trading were mostly down in February and March, but we're up.'

'Don't worry, Jack. While you've been away, I've been going long and short. I've also rolled our options and futures positions forward.'

'What do you mean?'

'I've carried some of the loss making positions from March into April. That keeps March positive.' 'Are we allowed to do that?'

'Why not? Oil and especially gas should do well this month. Our April profits will exceed the losses in March. We'll still be able to show Leash and our investors good results.'

'And if they fall, what then?'

'We'll think of a plan, Jack, we'll think of a plan. But energy prices won't fall. I'm convinced they won't. I know that some big knowledgeable players have been buying.'

I went back to my seat near Aram and pulled out all the prices, trading volumes and charts. He was right. During the recession after 9/11, oil prices had languished around $20 a barrel and gas had traded around $2.50 a British Thermal Unit, but in recent weeks they had begun to increase. I sketched black fish for oil and grey fish for gas and both had definitely broken into a higher level of the aquarium.

I was a little uneasy about Aram's policy of postponing losses, but Bank Kaboom, the independent administrator of the fund, had not complained. We managed the fund in London, but it was registered and legally based in the offshore, tax-free Cayman Islands. Every month we sent our fund's performance results and other information to Bank Kaboom. If the bank accepted the figures, investors were happy.

Aram brought me the latest monthly report for Aquarium and noticed me examining the charts.

'See what I mean,' he said. 'They're going to move, Jack. They will boom like coffee. We can invest in energy futures and options and in oil and gas stocks.'

I nodded my head. As usual, I approved the latest monthly returns by placing my signature next to his. The results were then despatched to Bank Kaboom and the investors in the fund.

Just before lunch, Cy tapped me on my shoulder: 'Don't forget our presentation at the Armourers' Hall at 4pm.'

'Cy, are we definitely getting another $100 million? Aram wants to put it in oil and gas.'

'He told me that he's already bought them.'

'What! He never told me that!'

'He's used the fund's loan facility,' said Cy. 'It should be OK. Hal Humford of Banque Discretione called me from Zurich. He told me that his bank intended investing more in Aquarium. That will give us more leeway to borrow more.' I rushed over to Aram.

'We're supposed to be partners. Why didn't you tell me that you were going ahead?'

'I had to move fast Jack. Prices are beginning to move. Best to get in now. Remember coffee?'