The Bonfire Of The Vanities Part 4

Sherman McCoy walked out of his apartment building holding his daughter Campbell's hand. Misty days like this created a peculiar ashy-blue light on Park Avenue. But once they stepped out from under the awning over the entrance...such radiance! The median strip on Park was a swath of yellow tulips. There were thousands of them, thanks to the dues apartment owners like Sherman paid to the Park Avenue a.s.sociation and the thousands of dollars the a.s.sociation paid to a gardening service called Wilts.h.i.+re Country Gardens, run by three Koreans from Maspeth, Long Island. There was something heavenly about the yellow glow of all the tulips. That was appropriate. So long as Sherman held his daughter's hand in his and walked her to her bus stop, he felt himself a part of G.o.d's grace. A sublime state, it was, and it didn't cost much. The bus stop was only across the street. There was scarcely a chance for his impatience over Campbell's tiny step to spoil this refres.h.i.+ng nip of fatherhood he took each morning.

Campbell was in the first grade at Taliaferro, which, as everybody, tout le monde tout le monde, knew, was p.r.o.nounced Toliver. Each morning the Taliaferro school dispatched its own bus, bus driver, and children's chaper-one up Park Avenue. Few, indeed, were the girls at Taliaferro who did not live within walking distance of that bus route.

To Sherman, as he headed out onto the sidewalk holding Campbell's hand, she was a vision. She was a vision anew each morning. Her hair was a luxuriance of soft waves like her mother's, but lighter and more golden. Her little face-perfection! Not even the gawky years of adolescence would alter it. He was sure of that. In her burgundy school jumper, her white blouse with its b.u.t.tercup collar, her little nylon backpack, her white knee-high socks, she was an angel. Sherman found the very sight touching beyond belief.

The morning-s.h.i.+ft doorman was an old Irishman named Tony. After opening the door for them, he stepped outside under the awning and watched them depart. That was fine...fine! Sherman liked to have his fatherhood observed. This morning he was a serious individual, representing Park Avenue and Wall Street. He wore a blue-gray nailhead worsted suit, custom-tailored in England for $1,800, two-b.u.t.ton, single-breasted, with ordinary notched lapels. On Wall Street double-breasted suits and peaked lapels were considered a bit sharp, a bit too Garment District. His thick brown hair was combed straight back. He squared his shoulders and carried his long nose and wonderful chin up high.

"Sweetheart, let me b.u.t.ton your sweater. It's a little chilly."

"No way, Jose," said Campbell.

"Come on, sweetie, I don't want you to catch cold."

"N O, Sejo, N O." She jerked her shoulders away from him. Sejo Sejo was was Jose Jose backward. "N-n-n-n Ohhhhh." So Sherman sighed and abandoned his plan to save his daughter from the elements. They walked on a bit. backward. "N-n-n-n Ohhhhh." So Sherman sighed and abandoned his plan to save his daughter from the elements. They walked on a bit.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"Daddy, what if there isn't any G.o.d?"

Sherman was startled, bowled over. Campbell was looking up at him with a perfectly ordinary expression, as if she had just asked what those yellow flowers were called.

"Who said there isn't any G.o.d?"

"But what if there isn't? isn't?"

"What makes you think-did somebody tell you there wasn't any G.o.d?"

What insidious little troublemaker in her cla.s.s had been spreading this poison? So far as Sherman knew, Campbell still believed in Santa Claus, and here she was, beginning to question the existence of G.o.d! And yet...it was a precocious question for a six-year-old, wasn't it? No two ways about that. To think that such a speculation- "But what if there isn't! isn't!" She was annoyed. Asking her about the history of the question was no answer.

"But there is is a G.o.d, sweetie. So I can't tell you about 'if there isn't.' " Sherman tried never to lie to her. But this time he felt it the prudent course. He had hoped he would never have to discuss religion with her. They had begun sending her to Sunday school at St. James' Episcopal Church, at Madison and Seventy-first. That was the way you took care of religion. You enrolled them at St. James', and you avoided talking or thinking about religion again. a G.o.d, sweetie. So I can't tell you about 'if there isn't.' " Sherman tried never to lie to her. But this time he felt it the prudent course. He had hoped he would never have to discuss religion with her. They had begun sending her to Sunday school at St. James' Episcopal Church, at Madison and Seventy-first. That was the way you took care of religion. You enrolled them at St. James', and you avoided talking or thinking about religion again.

"Oh," said Campbell. She stared out into the distance. Sherman felt guilty. She had brought up a difficult question, and he had ducked it. And here she was, at the age of six, trying to piece together the greatest puzzle of life.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, darling?" He held his breath.

"You know Mrs. Winston's bicycle?"

Mrs. Winston's bicycle? Then he remembered. Two years ago, at Campbell's nursery school, there had been a teacher named Mrs. Winston who braved the traffic and rode a bicycle to school every day. All the children had thought this was wonderful, a teacher who rode a bicycle to school. He had never heard Campbell mention the woman since then. Then he remembered. Two years ago, at Campbell's nursery school, there had been a teacher named Mrs. Winston who braved the traffic and rode a bicycle to school every day. All the children had thought this was wonderful, a teacher who rode a bicycle to school. He had never heard Campbell mention the woman since then.

"Oh yes, I remember." An anxious pause.

"MacKenzie has one just like it."

MacKenzie? MacKenzie Reed was a little girl in Campbell's cla.s.s. MacKenzie Reed was a little girl in Campbell's cla.s.s.

"She does?"

"Yes. Only it's smaller."

Sherman waited...for the leap of logic...but it never came. That was it. G.o.d lives! G.o.d is dead! Mrs. Winston's bicycle! No way, Jose! N O, Sejo! They all came out of the same heap in the toy box. Sherman was relieved for a moment, but then he felt cheated. The thought that his daughter might actually have questioned the existence of G.o.d at the age of six-this he had taken as a sign of superior intelligence. Over the past ten years, on the Upper East Side, for the first time, intelligence had become socially correct for girls.

Several little girls in burgundy jumpers, and their parents or nannies, were a.s.sembled at the Taliaferro bus stop, on the other side of Park Avenue. As soon as Campbell saw them, she tried to remove her hand from Sherman's. She had reached that age. But he wouldn't let her. He held her hand tightly and led her across the street. He was her protector. He glowered at a taxi as it came to a noisy stop at the light. He would gladly throw himself in front of it, if that was what it would take to save Campbell's life. As they crossed Park Avenue, he had a mental picture of what an ideal pair they made. Campbell, the perfect angel in a private-school uniform; himself, with his n.o.ble head, his Yale chin, his big frame, and his $1,800 British suit, the angel's father, a man of parts; he visualized the admiring stares, the envious stares, of the drivers, the pedestrians, of one and all.

As soon as they reached the bus stop, Campbell pulled free. The parents who brought their girls to the Taliaferro bus stop in the morning were a cheery bunch. What a chipper mood they were always in! Sherman began saying his good mornings. Edith Tompkins, John Channing, MacKenzie Reed's mother, Kirby Coleman's nanny, Leonard Schorske, Mrs. Lueger. When he got to Mrs. Lueger-he had never known her first name-he did a double take. She was a thin pale blond woman who never wore makeup. This morning she must have rushed down to the bus stop with her daughter at the last minute. She was wearing a man's blue b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt with the top two b.u.t.tons unb.u.t.toned. She had on a pair of old blue jeans and some ballet slippers. The jeans were very tight. She had a terrific little body. He had never noticed that before. Really quite terrific! She looked so...pale and half-awake and vulnerable. You know, what you need is a cup of coffee, Mrs. Lueger. Come on, I'm going over to that coffee shop on Lexington. Oh, that's silly, Mr. McCoy. Come on up to the apartment. I have some coffee already made. He stared at her for a good two seconds longer than he should have, and then...pop...the bus arrived, a big solid Greyhound-size vehicle, and the children bounded up the steps.

Sherman turned away, then looked back at Mrs. Lueger. But she wasn't looking at him. She was walking toward her apartment building. The back seam of her jeans practically clove her in two. There were whitish spots on either side of the seat. They were like highlights for the flesh that welled up underneath. What a marvelous bottom she had! And he had always thought of these women as moms. Who knew what hot little fires burned within these moms?

Sherman started walking east, toward the taxi stand at First Avenue and Seventy-ninth Street. He felt buoyant. Just why, he couldn't have explained. The discovery of the lovely little Mrs. Lueger...yes, but in fact he always left the bus stop in a good mood. The Best School, the Best Girls, the Best Families, the Best Section of the capital of the Western world in the late twentieth century-but the only part that stuck in his mind was the sensation of Campbell's little hand holding his. That was why he felt so good. The touch of her trusting, utterly dependent little hand was life itself!

Then his spirits sank. He was walking along at a good clip, his eyes idly panning the facades of the brownstone houses. On this gray morning they looked old and depressing. Shapeless polyethylene bags of trash, in shades of Dogs.h.i.+t Brown and t.u.r.d Green, were deposited in front of them, out by the curbs. The bags had a slimy-looking surface. How could people live this way? Just two blocks away was Maria's apartment...Ralston Thorpe's was around here somewhere...Sherman and Rawlie had gone to Buckley, St. Paul's, and Yale together, and now they both worked at Pierce & Pierce. Rawlie had moved from a sixteen-room apartment on Fifth Avenue to the top two floors of a brownstone somewhere along here after his divorce. Very depressing. Sherman had taken a nice big step toward a divorce last night, hadn't he? Not only had Judy caught him, in flagrante telephone in flagrante telephone, as it were, but then he, abject creature of l.u.s.t that he was, had gone ahead and gotten laid-right! nothing more than that!-laid!-and not returned home for forty-five minutes...What would it do to Campbell if he and Judy ever broke up? He couldn't imagine his life after such a thing. Weekend visitation rights with his own daughter? What was that phrase they used? "Quality time"? So tawdry, so tawdry...Campbell's soul hardening, month by month, into a brittle little sh.e.l.l...

By the time he had gone half a block, he hated himself. He felt like turning around and heading back to the apartment and begging forgiveness and swearing never again never again. He felt like it, but he knew he wouldn't do it. That would make him late getting to the office, which was much frowned upon at Pierce & Pierce. No one ever said anything openly, but you were supposed to get there early and start making money...and master the universe. A surge of adrenaline-the Giscard! He was closing in on the biggest deal of his life, the Giscard, the gold-backed bond-Master of the Universe!-then he sank again. Judy had slept on the daybed in the dressing room of their bedroom suite. She was still asleep, or pretending to be, when he got up. Well, thank G.o.d for that. He hadn't relished another round with her this morning, especially with Campbell or Bonita listening in. Bonita was one of those South American servants with perfectly pleasant but nonetheless formal demeanors. To display temper or anguish in front of her would be a gaffe. No wonder marriages used to hold up better. Sherman's parents and their friends had all had plenty of servants, and the servants had worked long hours and lived in. If you were unwilling to argue in front of the servants, then there wasn't much opportunity to argue at all.

So in the best McCoy manner, just as his father would have done it-except that he couldn't imagine his father ever being in such a jam-Sherman had kept up appearances. He had breakfast in the kitchen with Campbell, while Bonita got her through breakfast and ready for school. Bonita had a portable television set in the kitchen, and she kept turning toward it to watch the news report of the riot in Harlem. It was hot stuff, but Sherman hadn't paid attention to it. It had all seemed so remote...the sort of thing that happened out there...among those people...He had been busy trying to pump out charm and cheeriness so that Bonita and Campbell wouldn't sense the poisonous atmosphere that enveloped the household.

By now Sherman had walked as far as Lexington Avenue. He always stopped at a candy store near the corner and bought the Times Times. As he turned the corner, a girl was heading toward him, a tall girl with a lot of blond hair. A large handbag hung from her shoulder by a strap. She was walking rapidly, as if heading for the subway at Seventy-seventh Street. She had on a long sweater that was wide open down the front, revealing a polo s.h.i.+rt with a little embroidered emblem over the left breast. She wore some sort of go-to-h.e.l.l white pants that were very loose and floppy in the legs but exceptionally tight in the crotch. Exceptionally! Exceptionally! There was an astonis.h.i.+ng crevice. Sherman stared and then looked at her face. She stared right back. She looked him right in the eye and smiled. She didn't slow down or give him a provocative look. It was a confident, optimistic look that as much as said, "Hi! We're a couple of good-looking animals, aren't we!" So frank! So unabashed! So eagerly immodest! There was an astonis.h.i.+ng crevice. Sherman stared and then looked at her face. She stared right back. She looked him right in the eye and smiled. She didn't slow down or give him a provocative look. It was a confident, optimistic look that as much as said, "Hi! We're a couple of good-looking animals, aren't we!" So frank! So unabashed! So eagerly immodest!

In the candy store, after paying for the Times Times, Sherman turned to go out the door and his eyes swept across a magazine rack. The salmon flesh jumped out at him...girls...boys...girls with girls...boys with boys...girls with boys...girls with bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s, girls with bare bottoms...girls with paraphernalia...a happy grinning riot of p.o.r.nography, a rout, an orgy, a hog wallow...On the cover of one magazine is a girl wearing only a pair of high-heeled shoes and a loincloth...Except that it isn't a loincloth, it's a snake...Somehow it's wedged in her groin and looking right at Sherman...She's looking right at him, too...On her face is the sunniest, most unaffected smile imaginable...It's the face of the girl who serves you a chocolate-chip ice-cream cone at the Baskin-Robbins...

Sherman resumed his walk toward First Avenue in a state of agitation. It was in the air! It was a wave! Everywhere! Inescapable!...s.e.x!...There for the taking!...It walked down the street, as bold as you please!...It was splashed all over the shops! If you were a young man and halfway alive, what chance did you have?...Technically, he had been unfaithful to his wife. Well, sure...but who could remain monogamous with this, this, this tidal wave tidal wave of concupiscence rolling across the world? Christ almighty! A Master of the Universe couldn't be a saint, after all...It was unavoidable. For Christ's sake, you can't dodge snowflakes, and this was a blizzard! He had merely been caught at it, that was all, or halfway caught at it. It meant nothing. It had no moral dimension. It was nothing more than getting soaking wet. By the time he reached the cabstand at First and Seventy-ninth, he had just about worked it out in his mind. of concupiscence rolling across the world? Christ almighty! A Master of the Universe couldn't be a saint, after all...It was unavoidable. For Christ's sake, you can't dodge snowflakes, and this was a blizzard! He had merely been caught at it, that was all, or halfway caught at it. It meant nothing. It had no moral dimension. It was nothing more than getting soaking wet. By the time he reached the cabstand at First and Seventy-ninth, he had just about worked it out in his mind.

At Seventy-ninth Street and First Avenue the taxis lined up every day to take the young Masters of the Universe down to Wall Street. According to the regulations, every cabdriver was supposed to take you anywhere you wanted to go, but the drivers in the line at Seventy-ninth and First wouldn't budge unless you were going down to Wall Street or close to it. From the cabstand they swung two blocks east and then went down along the East River on the highway, the FDR, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Drive.

It was a ten-dollar ride each morning, but what was that to a Master of the Universe? Sherman's father had always taken the subway to Wall Street, even when he was the chief executive officer of Dunning Sponget & Leach. Even now, at the age of seventy-one, when he took his daily excursions to Dunning Sponget to breathe the same air as his lawyer cronies for three or four hours, he went by subway. It was a matter of principle. The more grim the subways became, the more graffiti those people scrawled on the cars, the more gold chains they s.n.a.t.c.hed off girls' necks, the more old men they mugged, the more women they pushed in front of the trains, the more determined was John Campbell McCoy that they weren't going to drive him off the New York City subways. But to the new breed, the young breed, the masterful breed, Sherman's breed, there was no such principle. Insulation! Insulation! That was the ticket. That was the term Rawlie Thorpe used. "If you want to live in New York," he once told Sherman, "you've got to insulate, insulate, insulate," meaning insulate yourself from those people. The cynicism and smugness of the idea struck Sherman as very That was the ticket. That was the term Rawlie Thorpe used. "If you want to live in New York," he once told Sherman, "you've got to insulate, insulate, insulate," meaning insulate yourself from those people. The cynicism and smugness of the idea struck Sherman as very au courant au courant. If you could go breezing down the FDR Drive in a taxi, then why file into the trenches of the urban wars?

The driver was...a Turk? An Armenian? Sherman tried to make out his name on the card in the frame on the dashboard. Once the taxi reached the Drive, he settled back to read the Times Times. There was a picture on the front page of a mob of people on a stage and the Mayor standing near a podium, staring at them. The riot, no doubt. He began to read the story, but his mind wandered. The sun was beginning to break through the clouds. He could see it on the river, off to his left. At this moment the poor filthy river sparkled. It was a sunny day in May, after all. Up ahead, the towers of New York Hospital rose straight up from the edge of the highway. There was a sign for the East Seventy-first Street exit, the one his father had always taken when they drove back from Southampton on Sunday evenings. The very sight of the hospital and the exit made Sherman think of-no, not so much think of as feel feel the house on Seventy-third Street with its Knickerbocker-green rooms. He had grown up in those pale grayish-green rooms and trudged up and down those four flights of narrow stairs believing that he was living in the height of elegance in the household of the mighty John Campbell McCoy, the Lion of Dunning Sponget & Leach. Only recently had it dawned on him that back in 1948, when his parents had bought and renovated that house, they had been a mildly adventurous young couple, tackling what at the time was an old wreck in a down-at-the-heels block, keeping a stern eye on costs every step of the way, and taking pride in what a proper house they had created for a relatively modest amount. Christ! If his father ever found out how much he had paid for his apartment and how he had financed it, he'd have a stroke! Two million six hundred thousand dollars, with $1,800,000 of it borrowed...$21,000 a month in princ.i.p.al and interest with a million-dollar balloon payment due in two years...The Lion of Dunning Sponget would be appalled...and, worse than appalled, wounded...wounded at the thought of how his endlessly repeated lessons concerning duty, debt, ostentation, and proportion had whistled straight through his son's skull... the house on Seventy-third Street with its Knickerbocker-green rooms. He had grown up in those pale grayish-green rooms and trudged up and down those four flights of narrow stairs believing that he was living in the height of elegance in the household of the mighty John Campbell McCoy, the Lion of Dunning Sponget & Leach. Only recently had it dawned on him that back in 1948, when his parents had bought and renovated that house, they had been a mildly adventurous young couple, tackling what at the time was an old wreck in a down-at-the-heels block, keeping a stern eye on costs every step of the way, and taking pride in what a proper house they had created for a relatively modest amount. Christ! If his father ever found out how much he had paid for his apartment and how he had financed it, he'd have a stroke! Two million six hundred thousand dollars, with $1,800,000 of it borrowed...$21,000 a month in princ.i.p.al and interest with a million-dollar balloon payment due in two years...The Lion of Dunning Sponget would be appalled...and, worse than appalled, wounded...wounded at the thought of how his endlessly repeated lessons concerning duty, debt, ostentation, and proportion had whistled straight through his son's skull...

Had his father ever played around? It wasn't out of the question. He was a handsome man. He had the Chin. Yet Sherman couldn't imagine it.

And by the time he saw the Brooklyn Bridge up ahead, he had stopped trying to. In a few minutes he would be on Wall Street.

The investment-banking firm of Pierce & Pierce occupied the fiftieth, fifty-first, fifty-second, fifty-third, and fifty-fourth floors of a gla.s.s tower that rose up sixty stories from out of the gloomy groin of Wall Street. The bond trading room, where Sherman worked, was on the fiftieth. Every day he stepped out of an aluminum-walled elevator into what looked like the reception area of one of those new London hotels catering to the Yanks. Near the elevator door was a fake fireplace and an antique mahogany mantelpiece with great bunches of fruit carved on each corner. Out in front of the fake fireplace was a bra.s.s fence or fender, as they called it in country homes in the west of England. In the appropriate months a fake fire glowed within, casting flickering lights upon a prodigious pair of bra.s.s andirons. The wall surrounding it was covered in more mahogany, rich and reddish, done in linen-fold panels carved so deep, you could feel feel the expense in the tips of your fingers by just looking at them. the expense in the tips of your fingers by just looking at them.

All of this reflected the pa.s.sion of Pierce & Pierce's chief executive officer, Eugene Lopwitz, for things British. Things British-library ladders, bowfront consoles, Sheraton legs, Chippendale backs, cigar cutters, tufted club chairs, Wilton-weave carpet-were multiplying on the fiftieth floor at Pierce & Pierce day by day. Alas, there wasn't much Eugene Lopwitz could do about the ceiling, which was barely eight feet above the floor. The floor had been raised one foot. Beneath it ran enough cables and wires to electrify Guatemala. The wires provided the power for the computer terminals and telephones of the bond trading room. The ceiling had been lowered one foot, to make room for light housings and air-conditioning ducts and a few more miles of wire. The floor had risen; the ceiling had descended; it was as if you were in an English mansion that had been squashed.

No sooner did you pa.s.s the fake fireplace than you heard an unG.o.dly roar, like the roar of a mob. It came from somewhere around the corner. You couldn't miss it. Sherman McCoy headed straight for it, with relish. On this particular morning, as on every morning, it resonated with his very gizzard.

He turned the corner, and there it was: the bond trading room of Pierce & Pierce. It was a vast s.p.a.ce, perhaps sixty by eighty feet, but with the same eight-foot ceiling bearing down on your head. It was an oppressive s.p.a.ce with a ferocious glare, writhing silhouettes, and the roar. The glare came from a wall of plate gla.s.s that faced south, looking out over New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty, Staten Island, and the Brooklyn and New Jersey sh.o.r.es. The writhing silhouettes were the arms and torsos of young men, few of them older than forty. They had their suit jackets off. They were moving about in an agitated manner and sweating early in the morning and shouting, which created the roar. It was the sound of well-educated young white men baying for money on the bond market.

"Pick up the f.u.c.king phone, please!" a chubby, pink-faced member of the Harvard Cla.s.s of 1976 screamed at someone two rows of desks away. The room was like a newspaper city room in that there were no part.i.tions and no signs of visible rank. Everyone sat at light gray metal desks in front of veal-colored computer terminals with black screens. Rows of green-diode letters and numbers came skidding across.

"I said please pick up the f.u.c.king phone! I mean holy s.h.i.+t!" There were dark half-moons in the armpits of his s.h.i.+rt, and the day had just begun.

A member of the Yale Cla.s.s of 1973 with a neck that seemed to protrude twelve inches out of his s.h.i.+rt stared at a screen and screamed over the telephone at a broker in Paris: "If you can't see the f.u.c.king screen...Oh, for Christ's sake, Jean-Pierre, that's the buy buyer's five million! The buy buyer's! Nothing further's coming in!"

Then he covered the telephone with his hand and looked straight up at the ceiling and said out loud to no one, except Mammon, "The frogs! The f.u.c.king frogs!"

Four desks away, a member of the Stanford Cla.s.s of 1979 was sitting down, staring at a sheet of paper on his desk and holding a telephone to his ear. His right foot was up on the stirrup of a portable shoes.h.i.+ne stand, and a black man named Felix, who was about fifty-or was he about sixty?-was humped over his foot, stropping his shoe with a high-s.h.i.+ne rag. All day long Felix moved from desk to desk, s.h.i.+ning the shoes of young bond traders and salesmen as they worked, at three dollars per, counting the tip. Seldom was a word exchanged; Felix scarcely registered on their maculae. Just then Stanford '79 rose from his chair, his eyes still fastened on the sheet of paper, the telephone still at his ear-and his right foot still on the shoes.h.i.+ne stirrup-and he shouted: "Well then, why do you think everybody's stripping the f.u.c.king twenty-years?"

Never took his foot off the shoes.h.i.+ne stand! What powerful legs he must have! thought Sherman. Sherman sat down before his own telephone and computer terminals. The shouts, the imprecations, the gesticulations, the f.u.c.king fear and greed, enveloped him, and he loved it. He was the number one bond salesman, "the biggest producer," as the phrase went, in the bond trading room of Pierce & Pierce on the fiftieth floor, and he loved the very roar of the storm.

"This Goldman order really f.u.c.ked things up good!"

"-step up to the f.u.c.king plate and-"

"-bid 8-"

"I'm away by two thirty-seconds!"

"Somebody's painting you a f.u.c.king picture! Can't you see that?"

"I'll take an order and buy 'em at 6-plus!"

"Hit the five-year!"

"Sell five!"

"You couldn't do ten?"

"You think this thing continues up?"

"Strip fever in the twenty-year! That's all these jerks keep talking about!"

"-a hundred million July-nineties at the buck-"

"-naked short-"

"Jesus Christ, what's going on?"

"I don't f.u.c.king believe this!"

"Holy f.u.c.king s.h.i.+t!" shouted the Yale men and the Harvard men and the Stanford men. "Ho-lee fuc-king s.h.i.+t."

How these sons of the great universities, these legatees of Jefferson, Emerson, Th.o.r.eau, William James, Frederick Jackson Turner, William Lyons Phelps, Samuel Flagg Bemis, and the other three-name giants of American scholars.h.i.+p-how these inheritors of the lux lux and the and the veritas veritas now flocked to Wall Street and to the bond trading room of Pierce & Pierce! How the stories circulated on every campus! If you weren't making $250,000 a year within five years, then you were either grossly stupid or grossly lazy. That was the word. By age thirty, $500,000-and that sum had the taint of the mediocre. By age forty you were either making a million a year or you were timid and incompetent. now flocked to Wall Street and to the bond trading room of Pierce & Pierce! How the stories circulated on every campus! If you weren't making $250,000 a year within five years, then you were either grossly stupid or grossly lazy. That was the word. By age thirty, $500,000-and that sum had the taint of the mediocre. By age forty you were either making a million a year or you were timid and incompetent. Make it now! Make it now! That motto burned in every heart, like myocarditis. Boys on Wall Street, mere boys, with smooth jawlines and clean arteries, boys still able to blush, were buying three-million-dollar apartments on Park and Fifth. (Why wait?) They were buying thirty-room, four-acre summer places in Southampton, places built in the 1920s and written off in the 1950s as white elephants, places with decaying servants' wings, and they were doing over the servants' wings, too, and even adding on. (Why not? We've got the servants.) They had carnival rides trucked in and installed on the great green lawns for their children's birthday parties, complete with teams of carnival workers to operate them. (A thriving little industry.) That motto burned in every heart, like myocarditis. Boys on Wall Street, mere boys, with smooth jawlines and clean arteries, boys still able to blush, were buying three-million-dollar apartments on Park and Fifth. (Why wait?) They were buying thirty-room, four-acre summer places in Southampton, places built in the 1920s and written off in the 1950s as white elephants, places with decaying servants' wings, and they were doing over the servants' wings, too, and even adding on. (Why not? We've got the servants.) They had carnival rides trucked in and installed on the great green lawns for their children's birthday parties, complete with teams of carnival workers to operate them. (A thriving little industry.) And where did all of this astonis.h.i.+ng new money come from? Sherman had heard Gene Lopwitz discourse on that subject. In the Lopwitz a.n.a.lysis, they had Lyndon Johnson to thank. Ever so quietly, the U.S. had started printing money by the billions to finance the war in Vietnam. Before anyone, even Johnson, knew what was happening, a worldwide inflation had begun. Everyone woke up to it when the Arabs suddenly jacked up oil prices in the early 1970s. In no time, markets of all sorts became heaving c.r.a.p-shoots: gold, silver, copper, currencies, bank certificates, corporate notes-even bonds. For decades the bond business had been the bedridden giant of Wall Street. At firms such as Salomon Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Pierce & Pierce, twice as much money had always changed hands on the bond market as on the stock market. But prices had budged by only pennies at a time, and mostly they went down. As Lopwitz put it, "The bond market has been going down ever since the Battle of Midway." The Battle of Midway (Sherman had to look it up) was in the Second World War. The Pierce & Pierce bond department had consisted of only twenty souls, twenty rather dull souls known as the Bond Bores. The less promising members of the firm were steered into bonds, where they could do no harm.

Sherman resisted the thought that it had been even thus when he entered the bond department. Well, there was no more talk about Bond Bores these days...Oh no! Not at all! The bond market had caught fire, and experienced salesmen such as himself were all at once much in demand. All of a sudden, in investment houses all over Wall Street, the erstwhile Bond Bores were making so much money they took to congregating after work in a bar on Hanover Square called Harry's, to tell war stories...and a.s.sure one another this wasn't dumb luck but, rather, a surge of collective talent. Bonds now represented four-fifths of Pierce & Pierce's business, and the young hotshots, the Yalies, Harvards, and Stanfords, were desperate to get to the bond trading room of Pierce & Pierce, and at this very moment their voices ricocheted off Eugene Lopwitz's linen-fold mahogany walls.

Masters of the Universe! The roar filled Sherman's soul with hope, confidence, esprit de corps, and righteousness. Yes, righteousness! Judy understood none of this, did she? None of it. Oh, he noticed her eyes glazing over when he talked about it. Moving the lever that moves the world was what he was doing-and all she wanted to know was why he never made it home for dinner. When he did make it home for dinner, what did she want to talk about? Her precious interior-decorating business and how she had gotten their apartment into Architectural Digest Architectural Digest, which, frankly, to a true Wall Streeter was a f.u.c.king embarra.s.sment. Did she commend him for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that made her decorating and her lunches and whatever the h.e.l.l else she did possible? No, she did not. She took it for granted...

...and so forth and so on. Within ninety seconds, emboldened by the mighty roar of the bond trading room of Pierce & Pierce, Sherman managed to work up a good righteous head of resentment against this woman who had dared make him feel guilty.

He picked up the telephone and was ready to resume work on the greatest coup of his young career, the Giscard, when he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. He detected detected it-righteously!-amid that great bondscape of writhing limbs and torsos. it-righteously!-amid that great bondscape of writhing limbs and torsos. Arguello was reading a newspaper Arguello was reading a newspaper.

Ferdinand Arguello was a junior bond salesman, twenty-five or-six years old, from Argentina. He was leaning back in his chair nonchalantly reading a newspaper, and even from here Sherman could see what it was: The Racing Form. The Racing Form! The Racing Form. The Racing Form! The young man looked like a caricature of a South American polo player. He was slender and handsome; he had thick wavy black hair, combed straight back. He was wearing a pair of red silk moire suspenders. The young man looked like a caricature of a South American polo player. He was slender and handsome; he had thick wavy black hair, combed straight back. He was wearing a pair of red silk moire suspenders. Silk moire Silk moire. The bond department of Pierce & Pierce was like an Air Force fighter squadron. Sherman knew it even if this young South American didn't. As the number one bond salesman, Sherman had no official rank. Nevertheless, he occupied a moral eminence. You were either capable of doing the job and willing to devote 100 percent to the job, or you got out. The eighty members of the department received a base salary, a safety net, of $120,000 a year each. This was regarded as a laughably small sum. The rest of their income came from commissions and profit-sharing. Sixty-five percent of the department's profits went to Pierce & Pierce. But 35 percent was split among the eighty bond salesmen and traders themselves. All for one and one for all, and lots for oneself! And therefore...no slackers allowed! no deadwood! no lightweights! no loafers! You headed straight for your desk, your telephone, and your computer terminal in the morning. The day didn't start with small talk and coffee and perusals of The Wall Street Journal The Wall Street Journal and the financial pages of the and the financial pages of the Times Times, much less The Racing Form The Racing Form. You were expected to get on the telephone and start making money. If you left the office, even for lunch, you were expected to give your destination and a telephone number to one of the "sales a.s.sistants," who were really secretaries, so that you could be summoned immediately if a new issue of bonds came in (and had to be sold fast). If you went out for lunch, it better have something directly to do with selling bonds for Pierce & Pierce. Otherwise-sit here by the telephone and order in from the deli like the rest of the squadron.

Sherman walked to Arguello's desk and stood over him. "What are you doing, Ferdi?"

From the moment the young man looked up, Sherman could tell he knew what the question meant and that he knew he was wrong. But if there was one thing an Argentine aristocrat knew, it was how to brazen it out.

Arguello locked a level gaze onto Sherman's eyes and said, in a voice just slightly louder than necessary: "I'm reading The Racing Form The Racing Form."

"What for?"

"What for? Because four of our horses are racing at Lafayette today. That's a track outside of Chicago."

With this he resumed reading the newspaper.

It was the our our that did it. that did it. Our Our was supposed to remind you that you were in the presence of the House of Arguello, lords of the pampas. Besides that, the little s.h.i.+t was wearing a pair of red silk moire suspenders. was supposed to remind you that you were in the presence of the House of Arguello, lords of the pampas. Besides that, the little s.h.i.+t was wearing a pair of red silk moire suspenders.

"Look...sport," said Sherman. "I want you to put that sheet away."

Challengingly: "What did you say?"

"You heard me. I said put that f.u.c.king sheet away!" It was supposed to come out calmly and firmly, but it came out furiously. It came out furiously enough to finish off Judy, Pollard Browning, the doorman, and a would-be mugger.

The young man was speechless.

"If I ever see you with a Racing Form Racing Form in here again, you can go sit outside Chicago and make your money! You can sit on the clubhouse turn and bet perfectas! This is Pierce & Pierce, not OTB!" in here again, you can go sit outside Chicago and make your money! You can sit on the clubhouse turn and bet perfectas! This is Pierce & Pierce, not OTB!"

Arguello was crimson. He was paralyzed with anger. All he could do was beam a ray of pure hatred at Sherman. Sherman, the righteous wrathful one, turned away, and as he did, he noticed with satisfaction that the young man was slowly closing the open expanse of The Racing Form The Racing Form.

Wrathful! Righteous! Sherman was elated. People were staring. Good! Idleness was a sin not against the self or against G.o.d but against Mammon and Pierce & Pierce. If he had to be the one to call this greaseball to accounts, then-but he regretted the greaseball greaseball, even in his thoughts. He considered himself as part of the new era and the new breed, a Wall Street egalitarian, a Master of the Universe who was a respecter only of performance. No longer did Wall Street or Pierce & Pierce mean Protestant Good Family. There were plenty of prominent Jewish investment bankers. Lopwitz himself was Jewish. There were plenty of Irishmen, Greeks, and Slavs. The fact that not one of the eighty members of the bond department was black or female didn't bother him. Why should it? It didn't bother Lopwitz, who took the position that the bond trading room at Pierce & Pierce was no place for symbolic gestures.

"Hey, Sherman."

He happened to be pa.s.sing Rawlie Thorpe's desk. Rawlie was bald, except for a fringe of hair around the back of his head, and yet he still looked youthful. He was a great wearer of b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rts and Shep Miller suspenders. The b.u.t.ton-down collars had a flawless roll.

"What was that all about?" he asked Sherman.

"I couldn't believe it," said Sherman. "He's over there with The Racing Form The Racing Form, working on f.u.c.king horse charts." He felt compelled to embellish the offense a bit.

Rawlie started laughing. "Well, he's young. He's probably had it with electric doughnuts."