The Buy Side (12 page)

It’s under these looming clouds that I enter the office on Valentine’s Day. A handful of
KISS ME
candy hearts sit on my desk. I don’t hate Valentine’s Day, because that would suggest I care. I’m a single, thirty-one-year-old trader on the buy side. And though I get verbally abused sometimes in the office for not having a serious girlfriend, my life is moving far too fast to fall in love. Besides, I’m having too much fun. I spend money without worry. I hang out with my roommates whenever I want. I’m not ready for a girlfriend.

I flip on my computers and pop a pink heart into my mouth. I check my emails. When I look up, Gary is sitting at his desk. I didn’t even hear him come in. He has a welt above his eye. The gash is fresh and glistens with bacitracin in the fluorescent lighting. His head is bowed, the posture of a beaten man. He picks up the phone.

“Gary,” I shout over. He slowly rolls his eyes up to meet mine. He’s lost a shade of skin tone: he looks ill. He looks like he didn’t sleep last night. The obvious question is on the tip of my tongue, but then I hear a voice inside say,
Don’t ask, don’t ask
. I quickly turn back to my email and say, “Never mind, I figured it out.”

One by one, the rest of my coworkers enter the office. Each sees the welt over Gary’s eye, his dour expression, and turns quickly away. Some of them already know what’s happened. Cell phones were buzzing right after the incident. Gary, no doubt, called Keryn; Slaine had probably already spoken with Ruby, since he was with them. It’s ironic: I was first in the office but am last to know. And although cellular connections burned with gossip, the office is enveloped by an eerie silence. Slaine lumbers in last, a half hour later than usual, and
sits down next to me. He doesn’t look at me. I glance his way to try to get his attention. He rubs his phone with a disinfectant wipe the way he does every morning. I keep trying to make eye contact, but to no avail. He knows I’m looking at him. He finally turns his head toward me and leans in close. “I bitch-slapped him,” he whispers to me. I shove four candy hearts into my mouth.

Of course, in this moment, I have no idea of how dramatically those four words will affect my career. All I know is, I’m consumed with a mix of emotions and curiosity. No matter the reasons that precipitated the event, Gary had it coming. No one knew this more than me.
But why now? And why Slaine?
These are the questions dancing tantalizingly in my brain. Then it strikes me. It was just a few days earlier that Raj had started needling Slaine. “Why do you take shit from Gary?” Raj had said. Though Raj often pits one employee against another—his cockfight model—he hadn’t up to that point done so at this level of management, at least that I knew of. But this is an extraordinary time. We aren’t making money, and Raj isn’t used to that. Maybe he thinks a small internal war will stir things up. He likes that Slaine and Gary compete for his attention. He gets off on it, like a hot cheerleader might get off on fielding several suitors. But I doubt Raj expected his little manipulation to escalate as far as it did.

Rosenbach and Slaine went to the Reebok gym together to work out. It was six o’clock in the morning. After the workout, they ended up together in the steam room, although not alone. There were two other men in there with them. What happened next has been told many times and in varying ways. Naked and holding his towel, sweat dripping from his face, Gary started riling Dave about being bullish this year. “We’re losing money ’cause of you,” he said. Slaine, with his muscles glimmering in the steam, warned Gary to stop, not once or twice, but three times. But Gary didn’t stop. Gary doesn’t know
what “stop” means when it comes to belittling people. Slaine even told Gary, like Babe Ruth calling his shot, what he was going to do if Gary continued. But Gary, his voice high-pitched and whiny like a dentist’s drill, continued. And that’s when it happened, an open-handed slap. Apparently the gash was a result of Dave’s thumbnail catching Gary above the eye. For a moment, standing completely naked, enveloped by steam, Gary stood stunned, glaring at Slaine. “Twenty years of friendship,” he said. “Down the drain.” Then he turned and stormed out of the steam room.

All that day I sit between them and not a word from one to the other crosses my space. I begin to feel like the Berlin Wall. At one point, Raj pulls Dave aside (but within earshot) and tells him he has to figure out a way to work with Gary. “It didn’t happen on campus,” Raj says. “It’s not my problem.” The next day is the same, then a whole week of absolute silence between them. But the rest of the office buzzes behind their backs. Word comes that Gary’s wife has called Raj to tell him he has to fire Dave. She says Gary is afraid to come to the office. He fears for his safety. The rest of us think it’s comical, but we know it’s just a ploy to make Raj choose between the two. The hostility is exacerbated, if that’s even possible, by the lackluster market. I wonder if the bitch-slap would have happened at all if we were making money. Of course, everyone on the Street knows of the incident. But when I’m asked about it, which I am all the time, I just shrug and say something about verbal abuse being just as bad as physical, a thinly veiled reference to Gary’s rudeness in the office. A month later, the relationship between Gary and Slaine is so fragile that something has to break. And it does.

One morning Slaine tells me to follow him into a conference room. He sits across the table from me. The material of his Izod shirt stretches to its limit across his chest. “This morning I’m telling Raj and
Krishen I’m resigning,” he says. “I’m starting my own hedge fund with two other guys.” His tone is matter-of-fact, but friendly. “I wanted you to know first.” It’s not as if I’m shocked. I knew something had to happen, and I also knew the chance of Gary’s leaving the firm was slim. Gary’s a founding partner, knows Raj all the way back to Needham. I wonder how I’m going to deal with Gary all by myself. “I think you should stay, see how they treat you,” Slaine continues, as if he’s reading my thoughts. “If they don’t treat you well, come work for me.” After all his help, Slaine is now giving me my greatest defense against Gary. If Rosenbach gives me any more shit, I’ll follow Dave right out the door. The thought gives me comfort. And with comfort comes clarity. It dawns on me that this could really turn out well. With Slaine gone, Galleon needs me.

And just like that, in David’s still warm seat, I’m the sole trader responsible for the billion-dollar healthcare portfolio. I think the firm is looking outside the office to add a trader for the healthcare team, but until they do, it’s all mine. I start getting to the office at six a.m. I need to know everything there is about healthcare. I stay after work to ask Krishen about all of the different sectors. I plan three business dinners a week. I seek out the smartest healthcare guys in the business. The sell side sees me as the new golden ticket. I’m in charge of distributing the commissions. The first month is a hard adjustment, but by the second, I think I might be able to pull this off. The third month, I’m starting to believe they aren’t going to hire anyone else. I don’t make any mistakes; I handle all of the order flow. I know everything happening in our sectors, and Krishen leans on me for insight. Even Gary treats me like a trader. And Raj asks me questions about the market. This is really happening.

The rumors and fears in the office about the Nortel trade died down after a few months but haven’t completely gone away. Every now
and then at business dinners someone brings up what happened, but it’s usually in the context of overall admiration. Ultimately, on Wall Street, it doesn’t matter how you make the money, only how
much
you make. And, despite the downturn in the market, Galleon’s reputation as a moneymaker continues to grow—our assets under management are close to $5 billion. We’re one of the largest hedge funds on the Street that I know of. And certainly among the most active—we trade all day and every day.

Though the shock of David’s leaving subsides, it leaves a scar. For one thing, it drives a wedge between Raj and Gary. Slaine had been Gary’s best friend—the best man at his wedding. After the steam room incident, Gary, at least as far as I know, never talked to Dave again. But Raj, always the businessman, kept his relationship with Slaine—at least, that’s what he led Gary to believe.

It’s during those first three months as Galleon’s head healthcare trader that my relationship with Krishen grows. Among all the people and characters on Wall Street I’ve come to know, Krishen is one of the good guys. Honest, fair, and hardworking, he doesn’t fit the mold of an evil portfolio manager. Every night he goes home to Greenwich to be with his family, which includes two young boys. Their artwork adorns his desk. Krishen is passionate about politics and issues outside of Wall Street, such as the environment. I admire the way he lives his life.

Not that I’m ready to live the way
he
does. Aside from my new position and the abundance of business dinners, my life at first doesn’t change much. Even though I go out often with sales traders, I don’t care for the fancy restaurants that are populated by buy side guys and other Wall Street big shots. I like wearing jeans and T-shirts and going to Mexican places on the Upper West Side, like Rancho and Santa Fe.
One night I’m with a sales trader at Santa Fe and when the bill comes he says, “I’m going to get in trouble for this. This check is too small.”

My dinners take on a whole new purpose and agenda. When John from Goldman offers to meet me for a drink, I jump at the chance. Though I know on which side of the table he sits, I enjoy being with him and think of him as a friend. Plus, I think he can help me navigate the uncharted waters I’m swimming in. We meet at the same bar we had the first time, on the Upper West Side. This time I’m there before him. He walks in wearing a huge smile. His thinning, brownish-blond hair is a mess on top. He holds out his arms to hug me. I stand and he squeezes me hard. “Turney, baby,” he says. He releases me and takes a step back. “Look at you, all growns up.” He pretends to wipe away a tear from his eye. “I’m just so proud,” he chortles. “Have they interviewed anyone for Slaine’s spot?”

“Not that I know of,” I say.

“This is good, really good,” he says, taking a sip of Jack Daniel’s. “I want you to call me first thing every morning. I’m going to put my pharma trader and biotech traders on the phone with you.” This is the very first time I’ve seen John talk seriously about business. He stares right into my eyes. His face shows little expression. “I’m gonna have them give you a rundown of everything happening in healthcare.” Though I believe he’s trying to help me, I can also tell he’s trying to help himself. We order another drink and toast to my promotion. I tell him again this might only be temporary. I don’t really feel that way, and neither does John. I don’t see myself going in reverse, and neither does he. I drain my drink, push the empty glass across the bar, and stand. “Where you going?” he asks.

“Dinner, I told you.”

“You double booker, you,” he says, feigning injury. “Now that
you’re a big-shot hedge-fund trader, you don’t have time for the little guy?” I give him my best
Come on
face and shrug, and he finally breaks into a smile. I go into my pocket to pull out some cash. “Please don’t embarrass me,” he says. I smile, stuff the bills back into my jeans, turn, and start for the door. “I’ll have my guys call you in the mornin’,” he hollers after me. I wave back at him without turning around, step into the night, and flag a cab for downtown.

Though by definition buy siders have strong personalities, at Galleon there’s never been any doubt on whose head sits the crown, and until recently not even Krishen would think of challenging Raj’s leadership. Though Krishen is friendly with his partner and the two men take their wives along on social events together, Krishen seems happy to be in service of the king. Or at least he was. Now it seems those roles have been turned upside down. The idea of a mutiny on the “good ship Galleon” is unthinkable, and yet that’s exactly what begins to occur.

On a Friday I hear shouting coming from Krishen’s office. He never raises his voice to anyone, let alone to Raj. Some minutes later, Krishen storms out of his office. He holds a stack of files as if he’s a fullback on a one-yard plunge. Fronting Krishen are three of our top healthcare analysts, like a flying wedge. They plow through the room and out the front door. They leave a vacuum in their wake. Whispers and shrugs are exchanged. With the exception of Raj and the four who just left, no one knows what’s going on. But everyone knows something big just happened.

The weekend goes by like it’s the last period in grammar school. Finally, Sunday afternoon, the phone rings and I hear Krishen’s soft, singsong inflections. He tells me he’s starting up his own healthcare hedge fund and that he’d like me to work with him. He gives me the address of a temporary office space he’s taken and tells me to come in the following day, Monday, to talk.

That night I can’t stop thinking about the events that are unfolding. Just a few days ago, the thought of Krishen’s quitting the firm was absurd. Along with being devoted to Raj, he also made an absolute fortune working at Galleon. In 2000, both Raj and Krishen made top ten lists of highest earners among hedge fund managers. And according to one list, Krishen’s $48 million made that year was nearly twice what Raj was compensated, but I’m sure it didn’t include the money Raj made in the admiral’s account. Why would Krishen jeopardize that kind of money, I wonder, unless he’s convinced he’s heading to an insanely lucrative situation? All of this contemplation makes for a fitful night’s sleep as I summon visions of life-changing opportunity and a once-in-a-career move. What’s he going to offer me? Head trader? Partner? Founding partner? Traders at this level get a percentage of the profits. I’ll ask for ten, but settle for five. I need to fall asleep.

First thing Monday morning, I call the desk at Galleon and tell them I have a dentist appointment. I make it sound like Krishen knew about it so Gary won’t be suspicious. I doubt it’ll work, but I don’t have another idea. I dress in khakis and a blue button-down and head out the door. It’s a beautiful early June day. The temporary office is at Fiftieth Street and Sixth Avenue. I walk there.