Dead Cat Bounce (9 page)

Jonah couldn’t help but be struck by the similarity between this Baron and the image of the Red Baron he’d played against yesterday. This one was pressing buttons on the keyboard like a fighter pilot going through his preflight checks; the other had appeared on Jonah’s screen out of nowhere, shooting to victory before Jonah could even blink.

Meanwhile, Jonah’s screen was going berserk. The numbers next to everything they had bought and sold yesterday morning were changing by the second. And in the profit column it was all blue and climbing. Jonah marveled at how much he’d missed the energy and excitement, even though he’d only been gone for half a day.

Suddenly, the bellowing started. Jonah could hardly tell where it was all coming from: “Gold, platinum, silver, all rising!” “River Deep diving!” “Mountain High roaring!”

“TAKE THE MONEY! Put it all up on the big screen, iPod. We need to see where we are,” ordered the Baron.

“I’m on it,” shouted Jonah, hyped up by the frenzy that had erupted around him. He pressed the function button on his keyboard so that his screen was duplicated on the fifty-two-inch LCD TV on the wall behind him.

“Now go, go, go!” the Baron roared to his traders. “Give iPod the volumes; we’ll do the prices afterward. TAKE THE MONEY!”

Everyone was standing, screaming, waving. One phone, two phones, three phones. It was mayhem as the traders sold everything they had bought and bought back everything they had sold.

“iPod! 20k Anglo gone!” someone yelled.

“iPod! 50k Gold gone!”

“iPod! 500k Katanga gone!”

The calls kept coming.

If the coffee Jonah had consumed over the past two days had heightened his awareness, this was sharpening his reflexes beyond belief. He was a machine. All sound other than the voices of the traders was closed down to white noise in his head. All he could hear was their shouts of completed trades: “5 mill platinum gone!” “70k Lonmin gone!” “Half a bar dollar rand gone!”

His fingers were unerring, punching in the trades and transferring the data back to the traders in real time. They in turn seemed to absorb the constantly changing picture on the screen behind him and use some sixth sense to close it all out without duplication.

“200k Barrick gone!”

“10 mill rouble/dollar gone!”

Next to Jonah sat the Baron, icy calm, and Jonah once again thought about how yesterday his avatar had swept in right when Jonah had believed he’d been about to win the dogfight on the training tool. At first, Jonah had thought it was a computer-generated character that had beaten him. But now he knew for certain that this wasn’t the case. It shouldn’t have come as such a surprise that the Baron would have been able to emerge victorious, even remotely. After all, he
had
told him that the program was connected to the trading desk.

“40k Norilsk gone!”

“20k Implats gone!”

As each position was closed out, the computer automatically wiped it off the screen, and after about half an hour Jonah could
sense that the incoming trades were beginning to slow down. They had carved through the bulk of the deals and were now picking off the stragglers.

“500 Harmony gone!”

“500 Rio gone!”

Jonah could see the Baron in his peripheral vision. He was leaning back in his chair, his fingers stroking his mustache, contented. Jonah watched him as he leaned forward and punched one of the buttons on the comms board, picking up the phone at the same time. “Amelia, I am obliged to ask for your presence for a second time today,” he said, the look in his eyes as hungry as ever. “A champagne moment is upon us…. Shall we say twelve forty-five? … Cristal … Yes, indeed, a very productive morning. So much so that I suspect the afternoon will be spent elsewhere. In fact, please book somewhere French for lunch … very expensive…. Thank you, Amelia. We look forward to seeing you soon.” He laid the phone down gently and leaned back again, stretching his arms and calling out, “Franky, collect the tickets, will you? It’s almost time for a Sympathy Session.” Turning his head, he refocused his gaze on Jonah, and Jonah could see the same glimmer in his eyes that he’d seen there yesterday … the moment before he’d handed him the training tool.

As Jonah worked
through the tickets that Franky had handed him—a slightly complicated task as these needed to be matched to the trades he’d already inputted—he could hear the Bunker Boys in the background. They were now in a state of post-battle euphoria.

“I love it when a plan comes together,” Dog announced, leaning back in his chair and licking his lips.

“I dunno. That one bloke called me an inside trader,” Franky admitted in a whisper, shaking her head.

“He’s just pissed that you had information and he didn’t,” Jeeves reasoned, nodding at Dog. He adjusted his bow tie.

“Said he was going to report us to the authorities,” Franky added, her eyes wide.

“Nonsense. He says that every time,” Milkshake contributed, his eyes darting to Dog and Jeeves for approval. “He’s only trying to gain an edge on you for our next battle.”

“Yeah, we stuffed him,” Birdcage mimed. Jonah almost glanced
up from his computer to chuckle at the way he said it. The comment seemed devoid of logic, as if he himself didn’t fully understand the words that were coming out of his mouth.

“Him and many others,” Dog corrected, grinning.

“There’s a few here who won’t be happy,” Franky said, more to herself than to anyone else.

“Ahh … screw them!” Jeeves yelled. Then with a wave of his arms, he added, “Another killing for the Baron and the Bunker Boys!”

Everyone cheered.

Jonah listened as the traders prattled on, smiling to himself as he continued inputting the data, but it was not until their discussion shifted to all the things they were going to purchase with the bonuses they’d make that Jonah’s ears really perked up. Milkshake mentioned that he was going to buy a black Maserati to go with the five he already owned. Franky said that she was going to buy some more gold jewelry because her doctor boyfriend didn’t have the cash, a comment that only led to the others mocking her for her poor choice in men. For his part, Jonah didn’t add anything to the conversation. He’d already acquired an iPod, and he could hardly wrap his mind around what it would mean to buy even more than that in so short a span, even though it sounded tempting.

The traders’ moment of exultation was cut short when the Baron yelled out, “Oi! iPod. You got those numbers done yet?” (Though Dog did add, “Yeah we’ve got stuff to buy!” for good measure.)

Jonah did have the numbers ready. He handed them to the Baron.

The Baron stood up, hit a button on his desk, and stood arms
apart like a game show host. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s show time!” he announced, and the Bunker Boys cheered even louder than they had a few minutes earlier.

Jonah looked around the trading floor. Everything had stopped. Everyone was staring their way, though Jonah couldn’t make out where his father was among the confused masses.

A drumbeat started to thump out of speakers hidden somewhere in the desks. It was the sound of tom-toms: dark and mystical to Jonah’s ears. Suddenly there was a scream: “Yeow!” And again, “Yeow!” Now maracas joined the tom-tom beat. More screams followed, conjuring up images of black magic and witch doctors in Jonah’s mind.

This was a song like nothing Jonah had ever heard before. The drums were driving it with a dark satanic beat, and the traders tapped along with their hands on their desks. Suddenly, the Baron’s voice rose above the rhythm. It was a surprisingly soft voice from such a big man, but clear. “Please allow me to introduce myself,” he sang.

A number flashed up on the TV screen, and Jonah’s jaw dropped at the size of it: 123,749,666. This was the amount of money the Baron and the Bunker Boys had made this morning. One hundred and twenty-three million, seven hundred and forty-nine thousand, six hundred and sixty-six dollars.

Even the traders seemed shocked at the sheer scale of their profit. For a moment their drumming ceased, their mouths fell open, and their eyes opened wide. The whole floor was silent in shock, the only sound being the Baron’s voice, singing about the devil, Lucifer, the crucifixion of Jesus, the murder of the Russian
Czar, Adolf Hitler’s blitzkrieg across Europe, stinking corpses, bad cops, and pain.

And all at once everyone on the trading floor was on their feet cheering, and the Bunker Boys were screaming and laughing. Jonah turned back to the screen and sat there transfixed by the number. It was pulsing in time to the music, changing color and rippling. In Jonah’s mind it had a life of its own. He couldn’t take his eyes off it.

He was vaguely aware of Amelia materializing next to him carrying a tray of champagne glasses high above her head. “Ooo Baron, that’s a very big one,” she cooed as she offered him the first glass, but it was only when Dog grabbed his arm and put a glass of champagne in his hand that Jonah tore his eyes away from the number before him.

“Come on, mate! I didn’t like you before, always hanging around, but you’re one of us today,” Dog said, grinning feverishly. “Made me a hundred quid and a monster bonus. Grab my back, we’re going to start a conga!” He turned around and started dancing in between the desks, shouting, “Conga! Conga!”

Jonah snorted at Dog’s honesty, stood up, placed the champagne glass on the desk, and fell in behind. Before he knew it, he was grinning madly and shouting, “I’m going to be a trader when I grow up!”

Within seconds the rest of the team had joined them, and they congaed around the Bunker, glasses of champagne in their hands, singing along with the Baron. Around and around they danced, summoning the other traders as they moved out to the main part of the floor, the conga line growing longer and longer.

Suddenly Jonah felt a hand on his shoulder, sliding down to grab the top of his arm roughly and forcing him out of the conga line. It was David Lightbody, grim-faced and angry. “That’s enough!” he screamed above the noise. “You’re out of here, Jonah.”

“But Dad, I’m having fun,” Jonah shouted back. “And you’re the one who said I could come back!”

“I don’t care, Jonah. Your time here is
over
.”

With that, Jonah’s father began to propel his son away from the Bunker. As he passed the Baron, he yelled, “I said no funny business! He’s a kid. Keep your circus to yourself and your bunch of clowns.”

The Baron sneered, put his fists up in a mock fighting pose, and carried on singing, “Hope you guessed my name.”

Jonah felt as if the Baron was looking directly at him alone, singing at him and no one else. He started squirming, trying to break free. “Let go of me, Dad! I don’t want to go.”

But David gripped tighter and pushed harder as the conga approached them around the other side of the desk and all the traders started pointing at them like football fans. Dog leaned into David Lightbody’s face, his teeth bared, and screamed, “Aggggghhh” as they went by, but David didn’t react. He just pushed Jonah on toward the exit, Jonah wriggling as the conga line snaked on without him.

“Why do I have to go? What have I done wrong? Tell me! Tell me!” he shouted until the doors closed behind them, killing the sound, killing the song.

Once they were
outside, David changed his grip and grabbed Jonah’s hand, pulling him down the corridor toward the escalators. He was walking so fast that Jonah had to run.

Jonah tried again to understand why his father was so angry. “What have I done wrong?” he pleaded.

“You? Uh, nothing,” David said, his pace as fast as ever.

“So why did I have to leave?”

“I never should have allowed you near that lunatic,” David snapped, and shaking his head, he added, “And then I let you back there. Twice!”

“But it was brilliant!” Jonah declared, unable to contain the excitement in his voice. They were now heading down to the lobby with its shark tank. “We made one hundred and twenty-three million dollars in one morning.”

“You made! You made!” David exploded. “That type of money doesn’t come without a price. He’ll bring the whole bank down one
day, if not even more than that.”

“What do you mean?” Jonah asked. They were on the pavement now, Jonah’s father hailing a black taxi.

“Forget it. You wouldn’t understand.” He had his mobile phone out. “Hi. Yes, I’m putting him in a cab now…. I’ll give him cash to pay for it.” David bundled Jonah into the back of the taxi, then bent down through the front window to give the driver the destination.

“I was hoping we were finally going to go to lunch today,” Jonah implored.

“Well, we’re not,” came the harsh reply. “You’re out of here. The au pair is expecting you, and here’s some money to pay the driver.” He handed Jonah a twenty-pound note. “That’s the end of it. And stop stealing my ties.” David gave the back of the cab two final pats, and the car sped away.

Jonah sat alone in the back of the taxi, glumly removing his father’s tie from his button-down shirt as he watched the City of London pass by. From his seat, he could make out Cheapside, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the London Stock Exchange, a glimpse of the old City wall, a sign to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and finally Holborn Circus, where the City of London finished and the City of Westminster began. But none of the sights, as impressive as they were, did anything to cheer Jonah up. Like his father had said, “That was the end of it.”

Except it wasn’t. Jonah had left the iPod on the Baron’s desk.

Three days later
a package addressed to Jonah was delivered while David Lightbody was out running. Jonah weighed the parcel in his hands and pressed his thumbs into the brown padding, feeling a sense of glee that in his hands might sit a massive secret, some part of his life that his dad would hate if he knew about. It felt like a book, but there was something else there too. Jonah tried to gauge the size of the second item by searching for its edges with his thumbs, but the padding of the envelope was too thick.