Banksters

1: Howdy

My name's Mark Dane. I’m a sociopath. Howdy. It's my first day as an associate vice-president. Like most sociopaths, I work in finance. It’s the sector of the economy where smart, unscrupulous bastards can legally take money from people who don’t know any better.

And get a pat on the back for it.

See, people are stupid. They’ll sign a document that financially chains them to an agreement they may not live to see the other side of, all without understanding it. Sometimes it’s because they don’t speak legalese; sometimes it’s because they’re lazy- but that’s even stupider. I mean, somebody incapable of understanding their loan agreement, evolution didn’t prepare them for this complicated world we live in. But the moron who glanced at the pages and decided his future wasn’t worth fifteen minutes of reading- that’s a nurture problem, there. Mommy and daddy loved them too much, so now they think the world is here to wipe their ass- when it’s my job to kick them right in the racing stripe.

I started in home loans, back when that was still a lucrative market, before people started to realize that every strip of dirt was worth, you guessed it, dirt. Well, maybe not dirt, but certainly not the wishful thinking, pie in the sky, flat wages don't mean people can't pull extra greenbacks out of their backsides forever inflated real estate prices of yesteryear.

But the mortgage market was smart enough that we found a way to make money off bad loans- that's how goddamn brilliant the financial sector is. We figured out how to talk people into home loans that they could never pay back, because we didn't care if they couldn't. We knew the moment they signed on the dotted line, we would package their loan with dozens like it, call it a security and sell it off to some half-wit investor. 

It worked mostly because we convinced people we were selling sacks full of money for 80 cents on the dollar. And initially, it wasn't such a bad deal- so long as the economy kept chugging along. But inevitably, we ran out of good mortgages to sell. By then, people believed we were handing out free money, and weren’t looking too closely at what was in the sacks. So we paid people to take a heaping shit in them, and sold those, too. And people stomped all over each other to buy them.

And the dirty little secret: any smart loan packager knew how absolutely shit his loans were, but still bundled them up, had one of the ‘credible’ ratings agencies put their legitimizing stamp of approval on it and then sold it to some poor schmuck who didn’t do enough research to know better. It was like taking candy from babies, only we offered them less than wholesale for it. So it was nice and legal, and they were actually happy with the transaction.

Even people who should have known better- like hedge fund managers, whose existence is supposedly justified by the fact that they're the people who know better- thanked me, personally, for taking their money in exchange for worthless strips of paper.

Of course, that's just how I got my foot in the door. That particular gig is up. Not that it's illegal, just that the rubes who bought the ratings-inflated securities know better, now, and the ratings agencies themselves already got pretty publicly caught with their hands up the cookie jar's skirt, so they don't want to risk the bad press of a second go round- at least not for a few more years, when collective memories have moved on to other bogeymen.

Not that any of that matters. Because those of us who made money off the deals still have it. And our bosses, and our shareholders, they have even more money than the bundlers and traders. 

But that was the past. It was my first day in the new job. The man in the ugly gray suit prattling on, but likely too stupid even to recognize it, was Edward Noakes; to look at it, you'd think it was a cheap suit, but I've seen in it on the rack and I knew that wasn't true. Kudos to Ed for finding a way to look like a bank teller while still paying more for a suit than said teller paid for his car. He's an AVP, too, and he's been helpfully showing me the ropes; though, as we're both now in line for succession to the vacant VP slot, I imagine he's hoping to loop some of that rope around my neck.

At least, that's what I'd be doing in his place.

I tend to see people through the lens of a cost-benefit analysis. Someone like Ed is a rival, and a stupid one, at that. Someone exceptionally talented might be an asset, a person to neutralize but keep around- but once you climb past lower management, most executives end up far removed from whatever skillset initially got them recognized as management material. I have difficulty believing Ed ever had a competency, period. I assume everyone in the job feels the same, but I'm self-aware enough to know that could be projection- me wanting to see some of myself in other people. Though in my experience, most other people want a little of me in them, too.

I realized I wasn't listening to Ed. I was staring out of the window, at how far I'd already come. This floor was only three stories from my old one, thirty feet as the shit falls, but it seemed so much farther away from the little cubicle farm I escaped. No more chintzy partitions, just white walls, fine art prints, and personal offices.

And my own secretary, who paused for a moment in the open door into my office, and caught Ed's attention. F. Though I imagine she saw herself as the waiting-for-M kind, the boys she dated in college notwithstanding. She was pretty, with shoulder-length blond hair, and blood red lips. She seemed to recognize me, but she also didn't seem happy to. She belonged to Jameson, Ed told me, then lowered his voice, but not so low she couldn't hear him- which I figured was intentional. "I don't know how much you heard from the lower floors, but he left under a bit of a cloud. The feeling is that his secretary's been tainted by it. I'd get rid of her; don't want the stink of another man on your girl."

I saw terror in her eyes, and opportunity. I think I'll keep her, I told him. Maybe she can teach me how things work up here. Wouldn't make sense to have both of us wet behind the ears at the same time.

He seemed taken aback. Even though he was probably used to people ignoring him, it was the first time I'd contradicted him, and probably in record time. He wasn't used to people from my floor coming with their own backbone. But contrary to how he wanted to perceive it, it wasn't about him. It was about her. I was new, untested, and without much of a power base to call my own. I was going to need every ally I could muster- every ally who mattered, anyhow, and one look at her told me I'd take her over a dozen Eds. And what's your name? I asked her.

Petra. Valentino. I saw it in her eyes. A couple of words in her defense, a little attention, and she was mine. She'd do anything for me; it was loyalty like a dog's- and given just as wantonly. Too needy to M; a definite F.

That's a lovely name, I said. I look forward to working with you.

Ed pouted as he led me into my office. It was why I never asked the question of men; I had no physical interest in them, and they were socially incapable of being anything past insufferable. So the answer was always the same- K. Ed paused in front of my window. I had a better view of the city than he did. I knew it irked him. We were so high up if I shoved him through the floor-to-ceiling windows, he'd have time for a full Catholic confession before he hit the pavement, and probably even time to wait for the call to ring through- assuming his bishop had a cell in his pocket and didn't have to hobble to his land line.

The carpet was a little too short to be comfy; I preferred feeling like I was stepping on a sheep, even with my socks on, and it was beige; the perfect color to stain while remaining completely bland.

My new desk was modern in its sensibilities, black wire frame, glass top. The desk is standard, he told me, running his hand over the glass table top, smearing his fingerprints across it. I didn't know him well enough to know if it was a dominance play, marking my office, or if he was just that callous and unaware that he was smearing his grease all over my things. If you want, you can look at the catalogs Suzanne has; there's some nice furniture in there. I'm partial to cherry wood, myself.

But I'll let you get settled in, he said. Your first staff meeting starts at 11. Feel free to acclimate, until then.

I sat down at my desk. Then I called in my secretary over the intercom. Ms. Valentino. Could you come in here, please?

One moment. She was faster, even, than that. What can I do for you? she asked.

Close the door, and have a seat. She did, and leaned forward in her chair. I couldn't tell if she intended to show me her cleavage or not, but she did. I don't want to get off on the wrong foot, here, so I'm trying to figure out what my predecessor did right and did not so right. What were his mornings like? She averted her eyes. It's okay, I'm not going to blame you if he spent them on eBay or whatever. I just want to know.

Mr. Jameson spent his mornings chatting with under-aged boys on the internet and trying to get them to send him pictures with their clothes off.

We'll skip that, then, I said, trying to calm her with my smile. What about his afternoons?

He spent his afternoons meeting transgender prostitutes.

"He had a full social calendar. But I'm assuming there were times when he actually did his job."

Tough for me to say, she said. She didn’t look at me as she continued. "I always thought he was working. Video-conferencing, off-site meetings. They wanted to fire me with Denny, but that security bitch interviewed me, and I told her I hadn't known anything before IT came to her with his internet logs." She was upset; she felt hurt by his conduct, even betrayed.

The security...

Daria, you'll meet her. She'll be at the executive meeting. Always stands at the CEO's side, like she's his little attack dog.

Is she all that bad? I asked, treading that treacherous ground between questioning interest and dismissal. I already knew about Daria. But I desired a firsthand account.

She's an inquisitor. I felt like I was a terrorism suspect. She was a former detective with the local police, vice into homicide. She retired after she filed a sexual harassment claim against one of her superiors, and the rumor was that she received a sizable settlement in exchange for her discretion. The rumor was half-right. She was offered the settlement, and refused it. She didn’t want public money for a private failing. That, and it was hush money. She bargained it away to have the guilty man retired out early, so the bastard wasn't free to do it again to some other girl.

Well, I'll be careful of her. And I'll see to it she never has a reason to question you, ever again.

She heaved a relieved sigh that seemed to surprise even her, then stood up. She checked her watch. Meeting starts in ten minutes.

Thank you, Ms. Valentino. And if you're free, it seems like you've had a lousy morning, I'd like to buy you lunch. Get to know the new boss kind of deal.

Sure, she said, smiling as she left.

At ten to eleven I walked to the executive conference room. It was early enough to be punctual, but not so early as to be wasting company time. Though the meeting proved to be that, anyway, and was boring, to boot. All of the action was happening in Administrative, Alice Mott's division, and I got the feeling that was the case 80% of the time. After all, this company's bread and butter was still banking, even if the margin on it was lousy. Ops and Finance were better money-makers, dollar for dollar, but the senior staff didn't have nearly as much to do with the day to day in those departments- probably because they didn't really understand them- and even with the better margin there was only so much to squeeze from that stone.

The only bright spot in the entire tepid affair was an off-color remark the president, George Morgan, made at his brother Richard's expense. Big brother Richard was CEO, and board chairman, and he treated his little Georgie like he was still a gawky child. Richard was throwing a party tonight at the office, ostensibly to welcome Sam and Alex Warwick officially onto the board. But the party just happened to coincide with Richard's birthday. Finally figured out a way to get people to show up to your birthday party? George chided him.

Alice chortled at that, and Richard glared. She was the only woman at the table, at least today, and certainly at her level, so his glare didn't faze her. So he shared it with George, then the rest of the room. I dutifully looked down and away.

Cliff hadn't made it into the office, so without trying to figure out who from our division was next in line, George spoke to me and Ed collectively as finance and told us to draft up a new memo. We both nodded our heads, without looking up to see if Richard was still glowering.

2: Secretive

I spent a few minutes at my computer after the meeting typing. Corporate communications are second-nature to me: cold and utilitarian and efficiently artless. I brought my old printer from downstairs, and printed the memo on it.

I looked at it a moment, to be sure it was exactly how I wanted it, and then took it down the hall. Security had its own executive level office- just not the title, and Daria was sitting in the same chair, at the same desk, as I had, the standard one. Which meant either she hadn't been offered the perks of the floor, or hadn't accepted them.

Daria Rheme. Beautiful. Obsessive. And potentially a very large pain in my ass. She had long, wavy, dark hair. Raven, I think, being the florid term, and pale skin that complemented her delicate features. F; K if necessary, though if things went to plan, it wouldn't be.

She was in charge of corporate security. And she was really good at what she did. Thorough. Scrutinizing. I couldn’t have that. In the end, I wanted what was best for this company- which generally translated to what was best for the senior executives- except where they weren't good for the company. And she was a firewall, standing between them and me. And that wasn't something I could suffer to continue.

I smiled nervously at her for effect. Daria? It's my first day on the floor, and I'm still getting used to operating at this level.

"The altitude this many flights up is killer, she said with a smile. Under other circumstances, I probably would have found her charming. The smile faded as she noticed my hands.  But gloves? You're not planning a murder, are you?"

Planning one? No. But you never know. I stretched my fingers in my black leather gloves. Bad circulation. My fingers get cold. Especially with the central air. Hopefully I'll acclimate.

Oh, I know. They never seem to find a good medium. Most of the time, in the summer they keep it too cold, and in the winter I swelter until I've stripped down to my skivvies.

But, uh, I wondered if you could take a look at this memo. I don't want my first day here to be my last day.

Usually I'd have one of my, she glanced at her computer, then the empty inbox on her desk, and didn't finish the thought. Sure. Just don't expect it to become a habit.

Of course. She scanned it. There was a typo in there she either didn't catch or didn't mention, but she did hone in on the important part.

"You're CCing and blind copying this all over your division, but you left in contact information for your executive VP. Most of these people would be able to get that, anyway, but as it's presented, he'll be the one inundated with concerns or questions, and Cliff hates that." 

That's good, I hadn't thought of that I told her, which was a lie. And from a security perspective?

Otherwise it looks fine. If that were releasing to the press obviously it'd be different- the numbers and direct email, like I said- but for internal consumption it's okay. She handed me the page back.

Thank you, I said, I did a little bow and left.

I walked back to my office, where I slid the memo into my desk drawer, and grabbed my coat. I pressed the intercom button to talk to Petra. You about ready for lunch?

Really? she asked, a little surprised I remembered.

Of course.

She was already wrapping herself in a fur-lined coat by the time I got out to her desk. She followed me down to the parking garage, and got into my car. Where would you like to go? I asked her.

You're new to the floor, not new to the city, she said. But I was new to the life, and when I didn't reply, she said, Brooks.

I drove us there, about a mile north. At dinner, Brooks would have been impossible to get a seat for without a reservation several days old, but the lunch crowd was thinner, since nobody's ever impressed or that impressive at lunch.

The host stared with some irritation at Petra. Something wrong? I asked him, giving him at least as good a glare as Richard used at the meeting earlier.

Uh, no, sir, the host said, and led us to our seats.

I helped her into her chair before sitting in my own. She was anxious, and the host's reaction to her had only justified her fear. I really thought you were going to tell me 'no' about coming here.

Why? I asked.

Because I'm not dressed for this kind of place.

No, that's why you wish I'd said no. Not why you thought I would.

I'm just a... she trailed off.

Just a secretary? Is that what you are?

Well, administrative assistant, she said sullenly.

If I thought that, I'd fire you, I said, and unfolded the menu to scan it. "Do you think that?"

She made an unexpected lemon face. You're looking for 'no,' right?

I looked up at her. "I'm looking for what you think. Do you think you're just an administrative assistant?"

No, she said quietly, but still tried to hunker down in her chair. The part she didn't say, the part she didn't want to admit, is that whatever her own grand designs, she was just an assistant, at least to the people she worked with. And that kind of marginalization weighed on a person. 

I made a sweeping gesture with my arm. "Look around. That woman has had easily $50,000 worth of plastic surgery. The one at the back's wearing a $9,000 dress. It's a light lunch crowd, but the women in this dining room have spent, cumulatively, a million dollars to not look as good as you do, right now. Wearing what you wear into the office, on a typical day. This is you not trying that hard. She bristled at that. She had made some token effort to clean up for the new boss, apparently. But that was far to the side of my point. You look gorgeous, and I'm sure you know you have no reason to feel self-conscious about being here. But what I want to know, and I want you to really think about it before you answer me, is are you just an administrative assistant?"

She exhaled, annoyed at my question. But she looked around the room, and sat up a little straighter. No.

Good, I said. Because I'd look capricious after telling Ed that I'd keep you if I fired you a few hours later. Her eyes opened wide. "Trust me, when I say this, you never want to be saddled with anyone who is just anything- it's so limiting. I've never been just anything. I've always been in the process of becoming something else. I noticed she was rereading a page on the menu a third time. But on the subject of limitations, order what you like."

Really?

"Money's no object. Besides, what you order tells me something about you, something far more valuable than what anything on this menu costs."

"And what if I just wanted a salad? What does that tell you?"

Lots of things, little things. One, you don't believe what I just said, about wanting you to order whatever you want.

Unless I just want a salad.

"Nobody wants just a salad. It's not in human nature. It's settling for a salad. And there are lots of interesting reasons why you might settle. To impress your boss with your frugality. To maintain your figure. To punish yourself for something."

"Or because I actually wanted a salad?"

The server came by. Two salads, please, whatever's tastiest. I said to her, barely paying her enough mind to decide F.

To drink?

Two glasses of white wine, whatever you'd suggest to complement the salads.

Very good.

Petra was in shock. After all that, you just give yourself a pass and order a salad?

We spent so much time talking about them that I started to crave one. But what's to say I'm not prey to the same issues we were discussing?

You're a man, and an older man.

Older? The server brought the wine first, and Petra waited until she left to react. 

Older than me, anyway. I'm a professional woman. I'm not allowed to let my figure go.

The social constraints are certainly different. But I have pride. I don't like the idea of needing new suits, or gaining weight.

But you're a man. That affords you the luxury of choice.

The server returned with our salads, and set them discreetly down in front of us. "But you had a choice, too. And you chose a salad. And what's more, you chose to have this conversation in an attempt to give me nothing to know you better with."

She thought about that for a moment, probing for a way she could contest it, but gave up. You flustered me, with your logic and your piercing blue eyes.

Are they?

"That's just a trick question, to get me to look into them some more, and get me more flustered."

She did, and I fixed her with them for a moment, before asking, Where did you go to school?

Who said I did? she asked. She still felt combative, if playfully so, but then realized I wasn't batting at her anymore. Columbia's journalism school.

So you wanted to be a journalist?

From a little kid, reading Lois Lane comics.

"Are you really that old?"

"No; but the moment I found out they had Lois Lane comics, not just Superman with her as arm candy, but Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane comics, I was hooked. I had to crawl through musty old comic bins to find them, and they were cheesy and often kind of lame, but I gathered every single issue in the run, and that comic ran for years. They're not mint or anything, just..." she stumbled on the next step in her story.

So what happened?

"Journalism dust-bowled. There's hardly anyone actually writing news stories anymore. There's a handful of people who work for the AP, and then that gets reworded, rewritten or just plain linked to a hundred thousand times for different papers and blogs. I even tried doing entry level, mail room kinds of jobs in the industry, and couldn't even find something that paid enough to cover my loans."

Until...

"I started with a temp agency. Not exactly the glamorous world I was expecting on the other side of my degree. But it was the only place that would even entertain the idea of hiring me fresh out of school. And it turns out that most of my journalism skills translated decently well to secretarial work: detail orientation, taking dictation, she licked her lips, and I told myself it had to be because she had some dressing on them. But what's with the twenty questions? The only person who ever spent this much time trying to know me was Ed Noakes, and he lost interest in a real hurry when he realized I wasn't going to blow him on my lunch hours."

"Because I wanted to know that you weren't just my assistant. And now I do. Right now that doesn't mean a lot. Right now, you just have a title, and not a very pretty sounding one. But in the coming days, that will change. I've found finance to be awfully competitive, and some days the work is more akin to battle than business. If I'm going back to back with someone, I want to know what kind of stuff they're made of before I turn my back. And I think we have a beautiful partnership ahead of us."

I raised my glass, and she clinked it with hers.

3: Party

A younger me would have asked Petra to the party. Of course, a younger me cared more about getting laid than getting anywhere.

She wanted to go. She hinted as much, when we got back to the office. She told me schmoozing with the other executives sounded dull, but that if I was there maybe it'd be more interesting. What she probably meant was it might afford her the opportunity to get her name on someone else's lips, which might be a step up for her career.

I'm afraid I already have a plus one, I told her.

Oh, I wasn't, she said, and tried not to look sad about it. 

I once heard that if you want someone to love you, open your heart; if you want them to do anything for you, close it. And that was why I didn't tell her that my plus one was Arnie Powell. I knew him from my time on the lower floor. He had a real creative mind for finance. He was one of a handful of people who had a reasonable claim to creating credit default swaps. And it was partly on the strength of his ideas that I'd risen to be an associate vice-president- that and a timely suggestion I made to drop our status as a 'bank' to avoid having to repay TARP funds. And it would have worked, too, if not for Dodd-Frank. 

But Arnie was still a golden goose. Just last week, as they were finalizing my promotion, he came up with an idea. The government moved to limit swipe fees, the charge that credit and debit card transactions incur from retailers. This was good for small businesses, good for consumers, good for the economy as a whole. And bad for banks and financial institutions such as our company, which was going to lose some of its profitability.

But Arnie figured out a way around the new rules. We couldn't charge businesses what we had been, but if we started to charge customers a monthly fee of $2 to continue using their debit and credit cards, we'd break even. I told Arnie that if $2 got us even, $3 gained us an extra 50% on top of that. He tried to brush that aside; it was the first real resistance I'd ever gotten from him on improving one of his ideas. 

I intended to throw his idea to the bosses that night at the party. I brought him along for the technical song and dance; I could pitch better than Nolan Ryan at the height of his game, but when it came to the details, even if they couldn't make sense of what the hell he was saying, the execs knew the difference between me spit-balling numbers and him giving them the real ones.

At least, that had been the plan, anyway. When I heard Alice talking, and the intermittent breaks in her voice, I knew that wasn't going to happen. Cliff had a heart attack. That's why he didn't show this morning. He was dead by the time his daughter found him.

Cliff Pembroke was a fat bastard, as mean as he was drunk, and sloppier even than that. The only surprise was that Cliff hadn't dropped dead choking on a whole hock of beer-battered ham years before. But the fact that he was in vaguely the same generation as the executive vice presidents meant their heads were jammed fully into their navels, and were going to stay there until morning, or they crawled into a bottle, whichever came first. I could have shown them a perpetual motion blowjob machine and they still would have found fault because it wouldn't counteract their mortality.

I didn't see Daria, though she was supposed to be here. I didn't allow myself to worry too much about that; she was probably around, lurking in the shadows. 

I did see a red head hanging off Richard Morgan's arm. A red head ten years younger than his wife. F. She was vibrant, energetic, with a warmth that made her a campfire around which all of Richard's usual hangers-on gathered instead. And he didn't give a damn. Not in the least. He seemed to tolerate her, because she kept his usual parasites too preoccupied to try to pick the scraps from his teeth, but he didn't even care enough to feign interest in her- which meant he wasn't planning to sleep with her. That was intriguing, since it had nothing to do with monogamy. Either way, it seemed like a criminal waste of talent.

Unsurprisingly, people drank to excess. I held the same watered-down rum and Coke in my hand all night, but I didn't drink it- mostly because it was watered down, but also because I didn't want any part in the revelry. And that was when Richard found me, standing in his boardroom, looking out the window. It's nice to see I'm not the only man who doesn't feel the need to drown his dread. The reaper takes his due, on his day. Fearing it only makes us weaker.

He touched my shoulder. Amongst friends- amongst equals- it was a gesture of kindness, and care. From an employer to an employee, it was a gesture of dominance; he touched me because he could, because I wouldn't do a damned thing to stop him. You're the new AVP in finance, right? What was the name, Zane? So was that.

Dane, I corrected him, and met his gaze full on. 

A little smile cracked from beneath his stoic visage. "I may seem callous. But no one here is mourning Cliff. This