Except they weren’t conversations. They were information transactions. As brief as they could be while still being unambiguous.
‘Hey, Pedro! Where’d you do Argy pars to discos?’
‘Fifty-six and a half on the pars and sixty-seven and three-eighths on the discos.’
‘He says he can get a quarter away on the discos.’
‘Shit. OK, I’ll give him them at a quarter.’
‘You’d do ten by eleven?’
‘Yep.’
‘You’re done!’
And so the bonds flew around the little square of desks, and from there to different corners of the globe: Tokyo, Zurich, Bahrain, Edinburgh, New York, Bermuda, Buenos Aires. We even did a trade with the investment bank ten floors below us. Hundreds of millions of dollars flowed in and out of Dekker Ward’s accounts throughout that day. But when it was all totted up it would show that a few hundred thousand more flowed in than flowed out.
I was beginning to understand what was going on. The skill in investing in these markets lay in assessing and comparing risk. Was Brazil riskier than Mexico? If so, how much riskier? If Mexico yielded 10.25 per cent, should Brazil yield 11.25 per cent? Or 11.50 per cent? Or more? How would this relationship change in the future?
But it was more complicated than just a country by country comparison. Each borrower had a whole range of bond issues outstanding: Brady bonds that had been born out of old rescheduled bank debt; eurobonds; bonds issued by the state governments, by state banks, by private banks. All these traded in a certain relationship depending on a mixture of rational analysis and the whims of different investors throughout the world, all with their own views and prejudices.
It would take a while to sort all this out, but I was sure I would get there, and I was excited by the prospect. And Dekker was the right place to be to do it. It was a well-oiled information-gathering machine. Ricardo was right: Dekker knew everybody. When something happened, Dekker always either knew or guessed it first. No wonder it made so much money. I couldn’t wait until I was really part of it, player rather than a spectator.
My attention was caught by a large man in a light grey double-breasted suit who was standing by Ricardo’s desk, going through some figures with him. I hadn’t seen him before.
‘Who’s that?’ I asked Jamie.
‘Can’t you guess?’
I looked at him more closely. He could be the same age as Ricardo, perhaps a bit younger. But he was bulkier, with a heavier face.
‘It’s not his brother, is it?’
‘Yep. Eduardo Ross.’
‘Does he work at Dekker?’
‘He certainly does.’
‘What does he do?’
‘Nobody knows exactly. Except Ricardo. Odd jobs, special projects, stuff Ricardo wouldn’t trust with anyone else. He’s responsible for Dekker Trust in the Caymans, for example.’
‘What is this Dekker Trust?’ I asked.
‘It’s our sister company in the Cayman Islands. It’s where we put stuff that we don’t want the authorities here to see.’
‘That sounds a bit dodgy.’
Jamie laughed. ‘It’s not, really. We have many clients who are quite shy. They’re not criminals or anything, Ricardo’s very careful not to deal with anyone who smells of organized crime or corruption. But they might be involved in legitimate offshore trading, tax avoidance, foreign-currency activities and so on. They expect us to maintain absolute confidence in their activities, and Dekker Trust allows us to do that.’
‘I see,’ I said doubtfully. ‘And is this operation owned by Dekker Ward?’
‘No,’ said Jamie. ‘Or at least not a hundred per cent. Chalmet, the Swiss bank, owns a big chunk, I think Dekker Ward does own some, and the rest is owned by the employee trusts.’
‘Employee trusts?’
‘Didn’t Ricardo tell you about them?’
I shook my head. Jamie paused for a second and then lowered his voice. ‘That’s how you get to make real money here. Ricardo lets some of the employees invest part of their bonus in these trusts. They’re run out of the Cayman Islands, or at least that’s where they’re booked. The management decisions are actually taken by Ricardo. Their returns are spectacular. I mean, a hundred per cent a year isn’t uncommon.’
‘Whew! How does he do that?’
‘With what he knows? It’s easy. He uses every trick in the book. Leverage, options, warrants, you name it.’
‘Is it legal?’
‘Of course it is. But it’s better if it’s done offshore. Discreetly. We wouldn’t like the regulators looking for holes, even though there aren’t any.’
‘And how big are these funds?’
‘That, my friend, is the biggest secret of them all.’ Jamie lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘But I reckon they have to be more than five hundred million dollars.’
It took a moment to sink in. ‘And that’s all owned by people in this room.’
Jamie smiled. ‘Most of it. Obviously our guys in Miami and the Cayman Islands have some of it. But I would guess at least half of it is Ricardo’s.’
I suddenly realized that I was surrounded by one of the richest groups of men and women in the world.
God. If I stuck around, I would get some of that too.
‘Eduardo administers this?’ I asked.
‘Ricardo needs someone he trusts to do that kind of thing. And he trusts Eduardo more than any of us. Oh, yes, and he’s also responsible for checking out new employees.’
‘What do you mean checking out new employees?’
‘Oh, you know, looking for drugs, bad debts, gambling habits, homosexuality, socialist leanings, mental instability, criminal record.’
‘You’re joking!’
‘No. It’s true.’
I was shocked. ‘So he checked me out?’
‘Must have. Or, at least, he will have got a firm of investigators to do it.’
‘But why didn’t you tell me?’
Jamie winced, and then gave me one of his broadest, most winning smiles. ‘Because I knew if I told you you wouldn’t apply for the job. Besides, I’ve told you now.’
‘You jerk,’ I said. Jamie laughed, but I didn’t think it was funny. I felt as though my privacy had been invaded, as though someone had stolen part of my life, or at least borrowed it for a bit. Someone I didn’t know.
‘Oh, come on, Nick,’ Jamie said, realizing he had misjudged my reaction. ‘We’ve all been through it. And you’re probably the cleanest guy in the room.’
‘Apart from the mortgage,’ I muttered.
‘Which you were sensible enough to tell Ricardo about at your interview. What are you worried about? He’s not going to tell anyone else.’
I still wasn’t happy.
‘Look out, here he comes,’ Jamie hissed.
Eduardo strolled over to Jamie’s desk. The other salesmen acknowledged him with smiles and greetings. Even I could tell their friendliness was false.
He held out his hand to me, a smile on his full lips. ‘Nick Elliot? I’m Eduardo Ross. Good to have you on the team.’ His voice was as deep as Ricardo’s, but his accent was a mixture of North and South American, with the emphasis on the South.
I stood up and shook his hand awkwardly. ‘Thank you.’