Stanley had, with the rest of them, tried them all on. Now he was down to gold, devaluations, tax havens. Arabs. Perhaps the shortest life cycle of all. And for what?
And then there was the even bigger problem. Jersey, Miami, Vegas, and all that.
Maybe the answer was so simple it might work. Just cut out. Move to Switzerland, Bermuda, even London. With maybe $30 or $35 million there could be no doubt that he would be accepted, maybe not by the people right at the top of the heap, but still accepted by most people for what he represented: money and brains. Then he would manage just a very few clients—to keep his hand in. All offshore. No more monkey business.
Stanley Rosen had reached that ominous stage of almost forty-five years of age; the point of no return. What he wanted to find above all other things was something that had totally passed him by thus far: a period of real happiness and simple contentment. He had first really sensed that such an unbelievable goal might still be achievable not so very long ago. In August he’d spent three weeks doing absolutely nothing on the island of Sardinia, with a young girl of twenty-four from Norway. They had met at the Copenhagen airport and had taken the same taxi into town. They had dinner outside in the Tivoli. Corny, but fun. Then five days later, off into the blue together. Totally unplanned. To Sardinia. The Calle di Volpe. A hotel built for no more than sixty guests; Frenchmen, Belgians, Swiss, British, Italians, Germans. All well to do. Some even titled. Clubby. But they had accepted Stanley. They had asked his advice. They had invited him onto their yachts for a supper. And nobody had asked him for a loan. He had even accepted the invitation of a pair from Brussels to drop in on them at home afterwards. It turned out he was in the Cabinet. Yet Stanley Rosen was accepted as an old friend, a guest of honour. Sure. Rosen knew that they knew. That he had a great deal of money. But somehow, almost like sleight of hand, it was never mentioned. He knew that they knew he was an American “primitive.” But they seemed to regard this as merely curious; his Jersey accent as rather cute; his mannerisms as “natural.” Rosen was no fool. But he knew that here was a world that he must eventually pay for on the open market. He knew that the question of price would inevitably come up. But it would be worth it. Then the crude pigs from Chicago, the show girls from Las Vegas, their drunken brawls in Nassau, the nit-picking little Jews from Jersey: all this could be buried and forgotten, just as his parents had buried their memories of their ghetto in Poland. Through the simple process of emigration across the Atlantic. Thank God he had his divorce well behind him. For with her, her ghastly makeup, her shrill voice, her girlfriends, her canasta parties, the whole idea would have been absurd. But with somebody like that girl from Bergen, with a clientele in the Near East, with the credentials of a stunning success during the Great Dollar devaluation, it was possible.
The pink telephone finally came alive again.
“Hallo, hallo, qui est là?” came the voice.
“This is Stanley Rosen calling from Switzerland, I would like to—”
“Hallo, hallo. Je ne parle pas Anglais, Monsieur.”
“Oh my God,” came Stanley Rosen’s reply. He clicked the receiver rather frantically, hoping to hell that the connection would not be broken.
“Operator, operator,” he yelled.
Nothing. And then more than nothing. The other end hung up. So did Stanley. “Son of a bitch,” cursed Stanley Rosen.
Well, nothing to be done. It would take at least two or three hours to get through again. Forget about it until later.
The phone rang again.
“This is the operator, Mr. Rosen. Was your call to Beirut satisfactory? It was rather short.”
“Yes, operator. Perfectly satisfactory. Thank you.”
No sense in making an absolute ass of himself. This was certainly one thing he had to correct and quickly. A quick course in French and perhaps one in German. Mr. Stanley Rosen would soon be as European as Grace Kelly.
Shower completed, Stanley decided to take a nap. He was satisfied, satisfied with the future now that the biggest action of his lifetime was underway.
13
HISTORIANS who later reconstructed these happenings during this first week of November determined that the real action started around two-fifteen on that Wednesday afternoon. The dollar was hit by the biggest wave of selling thus far experienced in the twentieth century. It dropped 3 percent in value within a matter of two hours against every major currency in Western Europe, led by the Swiss franc. Around three o’clock it looked as if a recovery might occur, but then came the news of the afternoon gold fixing. The price jumped $4.10 in one session. It meant that the gold pools in both Zurich and London were unable to cope with the sudden burst of demand for the metal. After that, the situation of the dollar worsened by the minute.
Secretary-General Bollinger of the Bank for International Settlements was sitting alone in his office, poring over the Telex reports that had been flooding in since lunchtime. He looked slightly sick. He had instructed his secretary to put through no further calls, with two exceptions: the American secretary of the treasury and a certain Dr. Bernoulli.
“What now?” he asked.
The almost man-sized carving from New Guinea staring at him from across the room could hardly answer.
Just two more days to go, and all hell was breaking loose. And of all bloody people, the Russians. If the Americans found out the whole sordid story they would crucify him—at best. Ausgerechnet die Russen! This morning when the president of the German Bundesbank had called him, he had thought, had hoped, that it was just a coincidence. The Russians could have had a million reasons for shifting over to dollars on the pipeline purchase. Nor had the Germans been overly perturbed. They had just thought that the BIS should know. It would mean that the future demand for dollars in the Euromarket would now be higher than had generally been anticipated. That’s all. It might push the long-term rates up. Maybe by .25 percent. But the people in Frankfurt did not know what he knew. And now everything was starting to tie together. First Melekov, then the delegation from Moscow pulling out, then the pipeline switch, and now the foreign exchange and gold markets going all to hell. Before it was over it could cost the United States billions—three, five, who knows—and the whole financial world would blow sky high in spite of this cost. Money thrown right out the window. Knowing the Americans, he knew that they would defend the dollar right up to the last second, rather than lose face to the Russians.
His secretary opened the door, but she just stuck her head in. She knew when the storm warnings were flying.
“Herr Doktor Bernoulli just called from the lobby downstairs and asked if he could come right up.”
“Tell him to come ahead.”
Bollinger was close to panic. For he was a man of total integrity, completely devoted to the immense responsibility which had been entrusted to him. He was one of those few international civil servants with enough courage and foresight to go out on a limb and do what he felt was right, regardless of the possible political consequences. He had seen no better path of action than that which he had undertaken in this terrible situation, better for all the governments concerned, including the United States. Bollinger was anything but devious. His approach was analytical; his actions were based upon logic, not tactical or strategic considerations. The circumstances now defied analysis. Events had gone underground, into a world which Bollinger had never experienced, and before which he found himself helpless… and increasingly bitter.