• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
 23Chapter Four -- Call To Duty0900 Hours: Friday, June 11, 1993: New York, New York Fifty stories above the streets of New York, Mike's dark, wood-paneled officeprojected the prestige and power of being a managing director of Franklin Smedley &Associates. Smedleys, as the firm was known on the Street, was one of the leadinginvestment banks in the world. Beside the large mahogany desk and leather chair, theoffice had a comfortable leather sofa and armchair, mahogany coffee table, dark Chippendale side chairs, and expensive oriental lamps. The dark red, hand-tied Orientalrug on his floor had been handpicked on one of his trips to Istanbul. An oil painting of adelicate, blossoming dogwood branch stretched out across a brilliant blue sky sat on thewall directly across from his desk.His bookcase and window ledges were crowded with Lucite, glass, and brassflotsam and jetsam: silent memorabilia of a long and successful investment-banking career.Though of nominal value, the odds and ends of plastic, wood, brass, and crystalrepresented the aspirations of many would-be fortunes.The office was quiet but for the soft hum of the ventilating system and the dullbackground noise of the city in perpetual motion countless stories below, the honking of afrazzled motorist or the loud noise of a muffler-less diesel truck roaring up the busy streets.
 
 24Even the Quotron computer on Mike's brilliantly polished mahogany credenzamade no sound as it chronicled the rise and fall of million-dollar fortunes on its green-lettered screen.Mike was dressed in a dark blue cotton shirt with white stripes, starched whitecollar, and white French cuffs anchored by simple gold links, bright red paisley bracesholding up custom tailored gray pinstriped suit pants, and a blue and red-patterned tie. Hewore a gold school ring with a garnet stone from Mr. Jefferson's School for Boys on hisright ring finger. Mike looked every bit the part of a successful investment banker.The arduous climb to the top had its price, which Mike had paid, though it was notreadily evident in his outward appearance, or even to him. Mike enjoyed his office, hisposition, and his attainments. He lived for the power and prestige that these things broughtto him.This morning, however, there had been a strange feeling, a gnawing sensation, apremonition that something was not right, that something had been left undone. Mike hadshrugged off the feeling as simply lack of sleep.The perennial SystemGraphon deal was in trouble, again, and he had endured toomany late night negotiating sessions, trying to put it back on track. The SystemGraphon,Mike's "career deal," seemed never to go away; it just wouldn't close.Aloysius Xavier Kang Sheng Liu, his thinning gray hair combed back over hishead, was in charge of Project Finance. Aloysius. Born in China, Mike had been giventhat cumbersome moniker by his diplomat father upon their arrival in the United States in1950. Someone called him "Mike" on his first day in grade school and that nickname hadstuck throughout the years.His rise at Smedleys had been spectacular, marred only by the often-unquiet jealousy of Ivy Leaguers who could not understand how an outsider could attain such
 
 25position. To them an "outsider" was anyone who could not claim to have grown up rich inConnecticut or Western New Jersey. To have been born into the right circles and to havereceived the proper education at Exeter or Choate, finished off with a sojourn at Harvard orYale or, in the exceptional charity case, Wharton -- in short: white and rich. Certainly, anoutsider could never achieve high stature at Smedleys, that was only reserved for them.There were some senior members of the firm at Smedleys who believed that Mikewas a Buddhist, despite his affiliation with the Lutheran church. Mike did nothing todisabuse them of this notion.The abstract angst of his youth had been long buried in his investment bankerfacade. Mike had come a long way from the child dropped into this alien society so manyyears ago.There was a knock on Mike's door. An associate at Smedleys, Selby Eastwood, III,opened the door with his usual intensity and serious demeanor. "Mr. Liu, can I speak toyou for a minute?"Seated in a brown leather seat behind a large uncluttered dark mahogany desk, theever-careful Mike put down his copy of 
The Wall Street Journal
. With bold slashes of hisfelt-tipped pen, he had made anguished marks in red ink next to the right-hand columnarticle titled, "SDI in Jeopardy, Congress Debates Rage Over Star Wars Budget."Annoyed at the interruption, Mike looked sternly up at the young face with thesupercilious smile. Eastwood was carrying piles of computer paper. Of all the asinineassociates I have to deal with, Mike thought.Peering at the interloper over his half-lens reading glasses, Mike said, "Sure, comein, Eastwood."Eastwood, a second year associate in the investment banking division of Smedleys,normally worked with one of Mike's colleagues. He wore rimless glasses, an affectation
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...