41. Squeezed BlackBerry

Squeezed BlackBerry

Jimmy took the tube to work. is was not out of any premonition of imminent poverty. e blow when it fel came as a surprise. It was simply that the tube was how he always travel ed to work, a fact that astonished his col eagues.

‘It’s not because of al that green bol ocks, is it?’ they would ask. ‘You do know that global warming’s a myth? In fact, apparently, using public transport creates more carbon than driving your own car.’

‘Nothing to do with eco, mate,’ Jimmy replied, ‘just good old-fashioned common sense.’

It was at least three times quicker on public transport than using a driver, and besides Jimmy liked to read the paper on the tube, something which made him feel sick if he did it in a car. Leaving as early as he did, he usual y got a seat and so arrived at work comparatively rested, wel -informed and stress-free.

Qualities which were often cited as evidence of Jimmy being a sane man in the nut house. A steady man, a grounded man. e sort of man the company needed.

But times were changing rapidly and as Jimmy descended into the underground network he was blissful y unaware that his easy-going charm was about to prove no defence against the boom-and-bust nature of unregulated capitalism.

e papers were ful of the government bailout of Caledonian Granite. e Prime Minister was getting a lot of credit for it and many editorials went so far as to suggest that this might be the beginning of the end of the downturn.

ere were others, of course, who assured their readers that this was not even the end of the beginning and that a far greater nancial crisis was looming.

Jimmy wished they wouldn’t write pieces like that. He and his col eagues al agreed that the more the papers talked about a crisis, the more likely one was to occur.

‘Six months ago,’ they’d tel each other, ‘Joe Public wouldn’t have known his sub-prime from his arsehole. Why does he need to know now?’

‘He doesn’t know now,’ others would say. ‘He’s as ignorant as he ever was.

e papers are scaring the public with language they don’t understand. It’s what Roosevelt said in ’32, we have nothing to fear but fear itself.’

ey al agreed that this was true, although sometimes Jimmy did point out that while Roosevelt said there was nothing to fear but fear itself, what actual y happened had been nearly another half-decade of the greatest economic depression in history.

He shifted uneasily in his seat and tried to distract himself by turning to the footbal . It didn’t help. e news was nancial there too, with commentators speculating that the downturn might spel the end of the twenty-mil ion-plus transfer fee.

Could the boom times real y be coming to an end? It seemed so unlikely; after al , he’d had the opportunity to make two hundred grand only that morning. If a bloke could stil make that kind of cash while he slept, how could the party be over? Except, of course, that the opportunity to make that money had arisen from a tip-off to cash in on the government bailout of a company which had col apsed because of the crisis. Just because some people can make a kil ing in a re sale, it doesn’t mean there wasn’t a re. Fuck.

Jimmy resolved to heed the signs, to start thinking about reducing his personal exposure. Webb Street was a very big project. Servicing the debts that he’d entered into so blithely consumed al of his income and a large part of his expected bonus. A bonus which he now had to accept would be much smal er than his previous one.

Perhaps he’d try to bring in a partner. He’d talk to Rupert. Maybe the Royal Lancashire itself would want to exchange some of its debt for equity.

But by the time Jimmy left his seat at Canary Wharf, his natural y resilient and optimistic personality had reasserted itself and his doubts had faded.

Jimmy’s spirits always lifted as he emerged from the tube station. You simply could not ride those escalators and step out into the heart of Britain’s nancial capital without feeling the sheer pulsating energy of the place. It never ceased to give him a thril ; the buildings were just so beautiful. Al black glass, mirrors and steel. Just like the cars.

Cathedrals to money. To success. To growth and expansion. is was the sort of thing that once upon a time they had only had in America. Now London had its own little Manhattan and we were nal y taking on the Yanks at their own game.

It had al changed so much since Jimmy’s rst morning in the money pit back in the early nineties. Back then, most of the great skyscraping cathedrals had existed only in the dreams of visionary architects. Back then, the business of making money stil retained its bel igerent, hard-edged eighties feel. People model ed themselves on Gordon Gekko from Wal Street with al that ‘lunch is for wimps’ business.

Back then, brokers and traders felt under siege, the unrecognized prophets of a new and as yet unloved philosophy neither trusted nor understood by the public. e post-big-bang City strutted aggressively in its stripy shirts and braces, chal enging the rest of the nation to come up to speed. Like the industrialists and mil owners of the nineteenth century, those guys knew that they were on the frontiers of new wealth creation and as such were inevitably resented and feared. To them the emerging futures and derivatives markets were like the Spinning Jenny weaving machine or James Watt’s bouncing kettle lid, a new and unstoppable money-making innovation which the Luddites would of course attempt to smash.

It was al so peaceful now, thought Jimmy, as he strol ed across the wide piazza that had been laid out in front of his building. Back then there had been tension in the air. e Pol Tax rioting of the late eighties was fresh in the memory; the disaffected stil had teeth.

No wonder the Gekko clones had wanted to avoid lunch. For a start, there was nowhere to have it. ere had been no splendid plazas and mal complexes nestling at the feet of the great glass towers then. No numerous coffee franchises and mouth-watering food outlets with their commitment to quality and protecting the environment and ensuring a fair deal for farmers in the third world.

No Starbucks. It seemed unimaginable now.

But the foot soldiers of the new economy had campaigned on booze, Snickers bars and cocaine. ose guys would not have dreamed of wasting fteen minutes in a queue of PAs to get a bucket of vanil a- avoured foam.

Society had sneered at them in those days, cal ing them ‘yuppies’ and

‘atcher’s children’. Left-wing playwrights and smart-Alec comedians had dismissed Jimmy’s predecessors as no better than robber barons. Back then Canary Wharf had felt like the forward base of an invading army, a New World outpost in which an elite force was massing to colonize and subdue the old.

But things had changed so quickly and now, with the new century already nearly a decade old, everything was different. ere were no left-wing playwrights and comedians any more; there was no left-wing anybody. Britain was at ease with its prosperity. It was the world’s fourth largest economy. Who could have predicted that? And yet it had happened on Jimmy’s watch. at was pretty cool, he thought. e dirty, depressing, angry, violent, sul en and resentful little island into which he had graduated was already ancient history.

Money was no longer the preserve of nerds and Neocons. Cool people dug money.

No more ‘lunch is for wimps’. Now there were chil -out hubs in the corners of offices and it was possible to book a foot massage at your desk.

Greed was no longer merely good, as Gekko had said. Greed was actual y hip.e world had changed and it would take more than a poxy bit of toxic sub-prime to turn back the clocks.

Jimmy’s office was in the Dildo. Obviously the Dildo was not the building’s real name; its real name was the Banana. Designed by an international y famous architectural rm to rival the Gherkin, it had for some time been the most talked-about building in Europe, although in the race to produce the most radical y bent building David’s rapidly rising Rainbow looked very much set to trump it.

e idea behind the Banana was that the vast tower should be curved. is would enable the top ten oors to each have the il usion of being the penthouse, as their glass-caged verandas (located on the convex side of the building) would have nothing above them.

e problem had arisen when the commissioning consortium had pointed out to the international y famous architectural rm designing the building that a real banana was inherently badly designed as inspirational fruit for a landmark building. e problem was it tapered away so brutal y at the end.

e premium oors in a skyscraper are of course at the top. e international y famous rm of architects had therefore been instructed to change the design to ensure that, instead of tapering away, it should swel out to provide more oor space at the top rather than less. is created a kind of ‘head’ on the banana.

Or in fact a Bel End. Hence the name by which the whole country came to know the Banana was the Dildo, or more commonly the GBC or Great Big Cock.

Of course the testosterone-driven occupants of the Great Big Cock didn’t mind the nickname at al ; it seemed very apt. Financial trading oors were the last exclusively male preserve, places where the vocabulary was numerate, not literate, and where nurturing and networking skil s were of less value than aggression and adrenalin.

e three oors occupied by Mason Jervis were al prime property, situated in the middle of the Bel End of the GBC and each virtual y the size of a footbal pitch.

Jimmy’s pulse never failed to quicken as he emerged from the bank of lifts into the MJ reception area. is atrium stretched upwards through al three oors, the roof forming the oor of the business above. From where Jimmy stood, he could see not only MJ Floor 1 spread out before him but also, if he looked up, the balconies of MJ2 and MJ3, to get to which you needed to enter a separate internal lift. It was awe-inspiring. And al this hung sixty oors into the sky in a massive, bendy penis-shaped building that housed some twenty or thirty similar chapels to the nancial sector.

What man could fail to be thril ed?

Jimmy headed up the Hungarian desk on MJ2. He was therefore in charge of al Mason Jervis’s dealings with the burgeoning Hungarian futures market.

Every day his guys placed thousands of multi-mil ion-dol ar bets on the next projected half-decade of the Hungarian economy.

A great cheer went up as Jimmy approached the forty desks that occupied his space. His corner of MJ2. His stake in the Great Big Cock.

Jimmy punched the air as he strode towards his guys. A bet had come good, some intricate packaging of as yet ungrown or unmade products had gone the way that the team were planning it should.

Probably a short.

Most likely the value of some smal part of Hungary’s future industrial or agricultural output had dropped in value, meaning that the package which Jimmy’s guys had sold (in order to force the price down) could now be purchased back at a lower price, yielding a pro t in the difference.

Bril iant.

Jimmy hadn’t come up with the idea himself. Nobody knew who that anonymous genius was, but shorting had swept the nancial world like a bush re. It was so much easier and more exciting to bet on failure. Investing in

the hope of appreciation was a long-term business requiring patience, foresight and a genuine understanding of the product you were speculating in.

Fuck that. Who had time?

Life was too short not to short.

ere was very little Jimmy and his guys could do to force the value of a product up. But forcing it down just took guts and a cool nerve.

Jimmy smiled. It was good to hear a cheer and see the guys punching the air as of old and high- ving each other. ings had been a little lean of late. e damn credit-crunch thing which had started in the trailer parks of the American Midwest had gone global and the weaker European economies, of which Hungary was one, were beginning to creak a bit.

‘Dudes!’ Jimmy cal ed out as he approached the desks. ‘Looking good!

Wha’appen? Whassup?’

Smiling faces turned to him.

Jimmy was to ask himself afterwards if any of them had betrayed a icker of nervousness. He thought that they probably had but he hadn’t noticed it at the time.

‘Good trade?’ he asked.

‘Big time, boss,’ said a guy cal ed Caleb. ‘A sugar cane future, shorted and sorted!’

‘Nice one, geezah!’ Jimmy said, high- ving his informant. ‘But I guess you mean sugar beet.’

‘Nah, cane, boss. Looks like it’s nal y emerging out of the shadow of corn syrup.’

‘ey don’t grow sugar cane in Hungary, dude.’ Jimmy smiled. ‘ey grow sugar beet.’

Now he did notice something. e blokes were al smiling as usual but there was something rather xed, perhaps even a little forced, about their expressions.

‘Yeah,’ said Caleb, ‘but Hungary’s on hold.’

‘Hungary’s on hold?’ said Jimmy, astonished.

‘e desk,’ Caleb hastened to reassure him, ‘not the country.’

‘How do you mean, the desk is on hold?’

‘It just is. From this morning. e Man came down to tel us. We’re not trading there any more. We’ve been seconded to the Caribbean under Marcus.’

‘Under Marcus?’ Jimmy asked, nding it difficult to meet anybody’s eye.

‘Yeah,’ Caleb replied without his usual good-natured smile, ‘and the Man said he wanted to see you on MJ3.’

Jimmy smiled a con dent ‘I’m not bothered’ smile.

‘See you guys in a minute,’ he said.

It took slightly longer than that, but it was over in less than ve.

e Man tried to be kind, but it was clear that al he wanted was for the interview to be done with.

‘We’ve pul ed out of Eastern Europe altogether,’ he said. ‘If it’s any consolation, al the guys are going. e heads like you today but I’m afraid most of the blokes wil have to fol ow. e other desks just can’t absorb them.’

It wasn’t any consolation. Jimmy wasn’t like that.

‘e problem is al these damn countries were doing too wel ,’ the Man explained. ‘eir currencies were unsustainably high and they al started borrowing dol ars on the strength of it. Now their currencies are returning to realistic levels and basical y half a bloody continent is one big slab of negative equity. We just can’t operate in their markets any more.’

Jimmy didn’t attempt to argue the suddenness of the decision. Everything was happening suddenly in the second half of 2008. Banks were folding. Prices col apsing. Governments tottering.

‘Head Office sent the news through at close of play in New York. I got it this morning,’ Jimmy’s boss said. ‘e order was quite clear. Shut down immediately. Cut our losses and run. Your desk is closed.’

ere was a moment’s silence. Jimmy wondered if he was expected simply to get up and leave.

‘Accounts wil be in touch re your redundancy package,’ the Man said. ‘I’m sure it’l tide you over.’

‘But . . .’ Jimmy began. He was about to protest that his situation was a little more complex than most. at he had mortgaged his home and become a property speculator on the expectation of continued employment. at a poxy redundancy package would not begin to cover the interest payments on the debts he had recently and recklessly incurred.

But what would have been the point? Besides which, the Man did not want to listen.

‘ere are no buts, Jim,’ he said. ‘It’s happened. To be honest, it should have happened six months ago. We’ve been carrying you in the hope that things would improve. In a sense, you’ve been lucky.’

Lucky? Lucky! Jimmy wanted to scream at the guy that had he been sacked six months before it would have been bril iant. Because he would not then have committed himself to a multi-mil ion-pound property scheme that he could not afford. He would stil have owned his house.

But he didn’t say anything. He just sat there. Struck dumb.

Subtly the Man’s attitude hardened a little.

‘I’m sorry, Jimmy,’ he said, ‘but you don’t work here any more. You have to go. I’ve had your desk boxed up for you. Goodbye . . . I’m sorry.’

Glancing behind him, Jimmy noticed two security guys hovering at the door. at was how it was done, he knew that. Once they’d dumped you they wanted you out immediately. Occasional y people turned unpleasant.

Occasional y people went back to their desks, drank half a bottle of Christmas whisky and then stormed in to try to punch the CEO.

Jimmy rose to his feet without another word.

Five minutes later, he was back on the plaza oor of the Dildo walking out through the security barriers.

en he stopped.

is was al wrong. ey couldn’t just bundle him out of the building. He wasn’t going to cause trouble or make a scene, but he’d known some of those people for years. He needed to say goodbye.

Jimmy turned and headed back to the turnstile. He swiped his card through the slot and then walked straight into the rotating bar, bruising his leg. e bar did not rotate for Jimmy any more. His swipe card no longer worked. It had already been deprogrammed.

He got out his BlackBerry. He would email Caleb and get him to come down and let him in. But Jimmy found he couldn’t do that either. His Mason Jervis email server refused to serve him. Besides, Caleb’s email address had disappeared from the screen, along with every other address stored in his business address book. Every professional contact of any sort, both within and without Mason Jervis, had gone.

Of course. Jimmy remembered now, this was another part of what they did.

ey didn’t want you carrying away any secrets, taking valuable information and networking potential to a new employer. ey’d closed him down. It was as if he had never ever had a life at Mason Jervis. And they had done it in the time it had taken him to descend from the Bel End to the bottom of the Great Big Cock.

An hour later Jimmy phoned Monica.

‘Monica,’ he said, his voice slightly slurred, ‘I’ve lost my job. I’m in the pub and I feel great.’

OceanofPDF.com