New York. Thursday, February 23, 1989.
Visconti paced back and forth in front of his desk, his telephone receiver pressed tightly to his ear. His lips were compressed as he waited for Miles Dennis to answer his telephone. His trigger finger and wallet were at the ready.
"What's happening Louis?" Dennis asked.
"Crude just went north of twenty. It's time to roll the dice."
Dennis recalled the advice he had given Visconti in October of the previous year. He had implored him to wait until crude rose above twenty dollars a barrel. "I thought you had forgotten all about that insane plan. I hope you're not telling me you're still interested in a big short?"
"Damn right I am! I want to do it now, and don't give me any reasons why I shouldn't."
"Give me one hour. Then come to my office."
"I'll be there," Visconti promised.
Forty-five minutes later, Visconti entered the office of Iacardi & Sons. Inside the reception area, he smiled and waved at the camera mounted on the wall.
Dennis saw Visconti on the video monitor in his office and buzzed Kerri. "That's Louis Visconti, Kerri. Would you show him in? Be nice to him. He's about to be a very important client."
Kerri, conservatively dressed in a gray knee-length skirt and pink silk blouse, hurried to the reception area. "Good morning, Mr. Visconti," she said, then exposed her irresistible smile. "Mister Dennis has asked me to show you in."
Visconti, instantly captivated by Kerri's stunning beauty, stared shamelessly at her young body. "You could show me anywhere," he said with a wink and a lecherous smirk. "What's your name?"
"Kerri," she replied, her smile gone. "Would you follow me, please?"
"With pleasure," Visconti said, then followed Kerri to Dennis's office, never once taking his eyes from her perfect body.
As they entered Dennis's cramped and cluttered office, Dennis stood and extended his hand to Visconti. "Hi, Louis. How are you?"
"Fine and ready to roll," Visconti declared, his gray eyes unblinking.
"Good...I trust you've met Kerri?"
Visconti turned to face Kerri with another lecherous smirk. "I certainly have. You have excellent taste, Miles."
Dennis frowned as he watched Kerri turn and head for the door. "Don't go Kerri. Stay for this meeting. You'll find it interesting." He turned to Visconti. "You mind?"
Visconti shook his head. "Hell no," he said, continuing to stare at Kerri. "I'd be disappointed if she left."
Kerri wheeled her chair into the office and closed the door, thrilled to be asked to attend.
"Louis, I made some calls," Dennis said. "I had to scope the crude market. I wanted..."
Visconti interrupted. "Miles, please. I don't want to hear it. It doesn't matter what you or anyone else says. I'm not going to change my mind."
Dennis raised his hands in surrender. "That isn't what I was going to say. I was merely..."
Visconti interrupted again. "You couldn't find a bull anywhere. Right?"
Dennis nodded. "The consensus is that O.P.E.C.'s production ceilings will hold for the winter. But by spring or summer the complex is expected to get extremely weak."
"I hope you're not telling me to keep my hands in my pockets again," Visconti protested.
"No. I was merely attempting to advise you to go out four or five months. In fact, you should probably do both."
"Why do I need to get fancy? Either I get in or I don't."
"Timing, Louis. It's everything. At this point you have every reason to believe the price of crude is going south, and it most likely will. But you don't know exactly when. If you anticipate and believe in price weakness by the spring or summer, you should take those positions. If you spread your contracts over several months, you reduce the risk of being forced to liquidate your entire position in one particular month."
"How the hell could that happen?" Obsessed with tunnel vision, Visconti could see the price of crude oil going in only one direction.
"How many contracts do you have in mind?"
"At least thirty thousand," Visconti announced. No delay. No apparent emotion.
Kerri completed a mental calculation and was stunned to realize Visconti had proposed a commitment of over six hundred million dollars.
Dennis leaned backward and placed his feet on his desk, his eyes riveted on Visconti's. "Suppose you shorted all thirty thousand in the July contract month. And suppose instead of going down, as you fully expected, the price went up and kept on rising until July. In addition to being forced to put up the cash required to cover margin calls, your entire position would be closed out in that month. That would be a disaster, Louis...If, on the other hand, you had allocated ten thousand contracts to each of July, August and September, only a third of your position would be liquidated in July. You would still have a chance of making money on the remaining two thirds."
"Okay. Let's do August and September," Visconti said.
"Fifteen thousand each?"
Visconti nodded.
"You have a price in mind?"
"At the market. Anywhere above twenty dollars."
Dennis raised his eyebrows. "You want a trailing stop-loss?"
Visconti shook his head, annoyed by Dennis's relentless attention to detail. This was his big chance, his opportunity to vindicate himself, to free himself from the self-imposed vice he had created as a result of his mismanagement of the King's trust. He had tunnel vision, and almost nothing to lose. "Let's just forget the bells and whistles and get it on. I have absolutely no intention of liquidating until the price hits single digits."
Dennis shrugged his shoulders and turned both palms face up. "I wouldn't want you to accuse me of not warning you."
"I appreciate that. So what's next?"
"I presume you remember our margin requirements."
"Still ten percent?"
"Dennis nodded, then lowered his feet and leaned forward. He completed a calculation on the back of a brown envelope on his desk. "At twenty bucks, the deposit is sixty million. You got the cash?"
Visconti nodded with tightened lips.
"Who, or what organization will be making the investment?"
"The same trust that took the short position in crude over a year ago."
Again Dennis raised his eyebrows. "I presume it's good for the money?"
Visconti smirked. "In anticipation of that question, I brought a copy of that trust's most recent financial statement. It's for the year ended, December thirty-first, nineteen eighty-eight." He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and removed a copy of the fraudulently amended report, then handed it to Dennis. "Please understand that the information contained in this statement must be kept strictly confidential. I'm giving it to you only to confirm the trust's credit worthiness."
Dennis opened the report and smiled as he glanced at the bottom line. "I don't think we'll have any problems with this...Would you like a coffee?"
Normally, Visconti would have declined the offer. Wasting time in idle chatter over coffee was alien to him. The opportunity to spend more time with Kerri, however, was too tempting. "That's a wonderful suggestion," he said, fighting a inflexible urge to stare at her. "Black."
Dennis turned to Kerri. "Would you look after it, Kerri? I'll have black, too. Get one for yourself."
Kerri nodded, then stood and left the office.
Visconti waited until Kerri was out of sight, then leaned forward. "You sly old dog!" he declared. "Where the hell did you find her? She's a goddess, absolutely the most beautiful female I've ever seen. I'm lusting. I can't help myself. "
Dennis leaned back and once again placed his feet on the desk. "Out of bounds, Louis. She's happily married."
"So what? I was happily married too."
"She's married to a football player."
"You're kidding! Who?"
"None other than the great Brian Pyper."
"The Jet's quarterback?"
"Yup."
"What the hell is she doing working for you?" Visconti asked, questioning why the wife of the Jets quarterback had to work at all.
"A damned good job. In addition to being beautiful, she's smart, and a terrific employee."
"Where did you find her?"
"She's enrolled in my commodities class on the island."
"I'm jealous as hell. Maybe I should start teaching," Visconti said, shaking his head. "Do me a favor. Let me know if she ever leaves Pyper."
"Don't hold your breath. I'm sure they're very happy."
"Sure they are," Visconti scoffed. "I was happy once, myself."
Kerri returned with three coffees. She distributed two, then sat to drink hers.
Visconti took a sip, then turned to face Kerri. "This is very good coffee. Thanks, Kerri. Miles tells me you're new here. How do you like the commodities business, and how do you like working for Miles?"
"I love the business, and Miles is the best boss I've ever had," Kerri replied, aware that Miles was her first and only boss.
Visconti pointed to Dennis and grinned. "I should tell you he's a real tyrant. He goes through secretaries like the seasons. If he ever gives you a rough time, come to my office. The second you walk through my door, you're hired. I'll pay you twice as much as you're getting from this old tightwad."
Kerri had already concluded she would not want to work for Visconti, no matter how much he paid her. "Thank you. That's a very generous offer but I'm very happy at Iacardi."
"You've broken my heart," Visconti said, symbolically clutching his heart with both hands. He finished his coffee, then stood and faced Kerri. The relentless stare of his cold gray eyes seemed capable of penetrating her clothing. "Time changes a lot of things. I'm sure we'll meet again."
Dennis also stood. "I'll need some time to assemble this deal," he said, extending his hand to Visconti. "Will you be in your office?"
"Until six or seven," Visconti replied. He shook Dennis's hand, smirked at Kerri, then quickly left.
"Wow!" Kerri said.
Dennis chuckled. "Breathtaking, isn't he?"
"Do you know him well?"
"Not on a personal level. We've known of each other through our respective businesses for a long time."
"What business is he in?"
"He's a partner in a company called Mara, Griesdorf and Visconti. It specializes in money management. As you already know, his office is also in this building."
"I can't believe what he just did."
"He's a world class plunger. He made his mark in the early eighties, had a track record of amazingly high investment returns, and a reputation for almost always being right. His predictions were so accurate, it was scary. They called him The Crown Prince of Wall Street, until his house of cards came crashing down."
"What happened?"
"The stock market crashed in October of eighty-seven and the trust we were just talking about went with it. I was shocked when he told me it lost a half a billion dollars. Ever since then he's been desperate to make it all back, fast."
"Is that why he just made that investment?"
Dennis nodded. "He's wanted to do it ever since the crash. Until this point, I've been able to persuade him to wait. I advised him to stay out of the market until spot crude broke through twenty dollars a barrel on the upside. I had hoped he would find a less risky alternative and forget the crude short. Obviously he didn't."
"Is the investment really that risky?"
"Enormously. If he's right, he'll make an incredible amount of money. God help him if he's wrong."
"Do you think he's right?"
Dennis shrugged his shoulders. "He could be right at the wrong time. It's a gigantic investment, fully leveraged. It's the stuff of which financial legends are made, both negative and positive. He could go to the moon or lose the farm on this one."
"How much is the trust worth?"
Dennis handed her the falsified report Visconti had given him. "Take a look at this," he said.
She read the report, then looked up at her boss, amazed. The experience was a learning explosion for Kerri. She had never conceived of anyone possessing such a large amount of money. To wager so much on one single investment was unimaginable.