“Good morning, Rose. Louis.” I take the printout from Rose containing the meetings and phone conferences set for today along with any important messages. I flip through each of pages quickly. “Tell the Times and Wall Street Journal no and schedule a meeting for Friday with Keller. It can be a lunch meeting. Make it for Megu at the UN Plaza. He likes that place. Also, have we arranged everything with the Frick?”
She nods. “The tickets will be delivered to your home this week. The first gift amount has been sent, and there’s a draft of the commemorative announcement in your inbox. I’ve marked it as important.”
“Good.”
“You haven’t read your emails yet?” Louis yelps in dismay. “I’ve sent four this morning and seven last night. All of them are urgent!”
“All of your messages can’t be urgent.” I don’t feel guilty about not looking at my inbox after leaving work early yesterday. Jake had called at five to tell me he was sending Tiny home, and I wanted to be there when she arrived. Reading Louis’s emails was the furthest thing from my mind last night, and I told him so. “I had better things to do last night than read business emails. And, frankly, so should you. All work, Louis.”
He scoffs. “That’s not the maxim you lived by three months ago. Ever since—” He stops, perhaps recognizing that I’ll not tolerate any negativity about Tiny. “Look, since you’re finally here, we can get started.”
I’m halfway into my office when Louis finishes his sentence.
“I didn’t realize I was on the clock,” I said mildly. “Or that I answered to you.”
He stammers out a response. “Of course not. I meant I was just eager to go over the reports with you. These deals aren’t going to be around for long.”
Quickly, I calculate the pros and cons of firing him on the spot for clear insubordination. I hired him because he was bright and hungry. His great weakness is his tendency to make emotion-based decisions. Investments should be done without sentiment. I’ve been trying to train that out of him. He needs to lead with his head more and not his hurt feelings.
Two years ago, he’d wanted to scuttle a deal with a small transport company. The owners were a few guys from the Midwest who liked to order their steaks well done. They were rough around the edges, and Louis had been affronted by nearly everything—from how they held their forks to the condition of the home office, which was really nothing more than a shed. He’d claimed that it was a sign of the immaturity of the company, but I’d invested over his objections. Since then it’s been over-performing the paper estimates. They were more interested in pouring money back into the fleet and their employees than making sure the home office looked good. I approved. Louis did not.
That might have been the start of the growing rift between us, but the last three months spent with Tiny have driven a sharp wedge into the fissure.
Last year was the best year Kerr Inc. had seen in the decade of its existence. Before Tiny, my sole focus had been ensuring my place at the top of the heap of snarling animals that comprises the financial world.
I just didn’t realize how lonely it was up there until she came along. Once you reach a certain level, it’s not about how many things you can buy—how many properties, cars, priceless works of art—it’s how far and hard can you push yourself. But Louis isn’t there yet, either financially or mentally. I suspect he might be looking at shortcuts to the top, which means I’ll have to let him go regardless.
His discomfort is evident, but I make no effort to dispel it. He should know that I’m unhappy with him.
“Let’s get to work then.”
He enters the office quickly, and we get down to business. I take two meetings in the morning and review a report my team of investment analysts have done on a tech firm in Seattle working on wearable technology. Another company is making advancements in light refracting clothes that can render one invisible to the naked eye. Unless I get prototypes, I’m not investing millions in either company.
“I think the military tech firm is more interesting only because it has more upside. Government contracts are great for overpaying,” Louis says as we sit in my office sifting through the morning presentations.
“So our entire investment strategy hinges on how good the company is at fleecing the U.S. government out of its money?”
He shrugs. “Someone’s going to benefit from that stupidity. Why not us?”
“Why not indeed?” I say dryly. “Both these companies can be outpaced tomorrow. There’s a competing invisible technology being developed as we speak, and we don’t have enough information to make an educated guess as to which is going to win out. I’m not willing to back either until I’ve got a good sense about which will be VHS and which will be Betamax.”
“What about the wearable tech?” Louis urges. He’s eager to make some sort of deal today, as if he can’t wait to spend Kerr Inc. money regardless of whether the deal makes sense. I test out an idea that I’ve been debating for the last month. Sophie Corielli’s death has affected me strongly, but in a different way than it affected her daughter.
I no longer want to spend every day shut up in my office. I’ve done little traveling except for work. I’ve done little entertaining except for work. I’ve reached the pinnacle of the financial world at the relatively young age of thirty-two because all I’ve done since the age of thirteen is work. I’d wake up thinking about ways to make money and execute those ideas until I was too tired to stand. Then I’d dream about more ways to make money.
But now my dreams are full of Tiny and the life we could have together. I’ve made enough money. Now it’s time to enjoy it.
“I’m thinking of winding down Kerr Inc.”
“Winding it down?” Louis shoots out of his chair and leans his hands on my desk, a giant thing made of my favorite wood, walnut. Thankfully, there’s enough space between the two of us that I avoid being drenched by his saliva-filled horror. “You can’t wind this down. You love it. It’s your life!”
I toss the prospectus for the military firm on the desk and wander over to the windows. From the thirty-fourth floor, I can see Staten Island and the ferries. I wonder if Tiny has ever visited the Statue of Liberty. I haven’t. I can count on one hand the number of New York City monuments I’ve visited.
The Empire State Building—but only because a woman I was dating wanted to have sex up there. What was her name again? Bettina? I remember the initial thrill of the possibility of being caught, but Bettina kept pushing the envelope. A dark corner on the top of the observation deck after I’d slipped the security guard a Benjamin was fine for me. I hadn’t balked at screwing her on a Sunday morning at the Standard overlooking the Highline. But when I figured out she enjoyed exhibitionism far more than she enjoyed my cock, I sent her a nice tennis bracelet from Tiffany’s and told her that there was someone out there better than me.