The Gods of Greenwich Read Online Free PDF Page B

seventy-six.”
    “The Dead Sea wasn’t on the critical list when that gal was born.”

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
    WEDNESDAY , APRIL 16
    Cusack was standing in line at the post office. His crooked smile curled to the right. His blue eyes twinkled. His sandy brows arched high, resembling the outer edges of half-moons. He was in good shape, 175 pounds stretched tight across a six-foot frame. He wore slim blue jeans, a white shirt, and a tweed jacket. He radiated the easy manner of success.
    But he felt like a severed artery. A registered letter from Litton Loan Servicing was waiting for him at the counter. He knew all about the Houston-based company. Litton administered loan portfolios and chased deadbeats who missed their mortgage payments.
    Cusack had missed the last three. With $20,000 in his checking account last January, the decision was simple. He could make one mortgage payment or parcel out the remaining cash on food, electricity, cell phone, gas, and other essentials until he found a job.
    *   *   *
    Cusack Capital was gone. The fund folded during March, not in the spectacular fashion of Amaranth Advisors, which lost $6 billion two years earlier. Jimmy never managed more than $200 million in total assets. But his company perished all the same, and like so many other would-be titans of finance, Cusack closed his doors in silent obscurity.
    He had been so careful setting up his company. In order to convey financial strength, Cusack leased space on the sixty-first floor of the world’s most iconic office building. To show moderation, he bought secondhand furniture at a liquidation sale and avoided the bird’s-eye maple and Italian leather favored by his hedge fund brethren. Antiques were a nonstarter. He would have replaced the furnace in his mother’s three-family house before spending a few hundred thousand on period pieces.
    Cusack’s frugal decisions no longer mattered. The Bloomberg terminals, lobby furniture, and conference table for eight were all gone. So were the Cisco phones and state-of-the-art computers, not to mention the fifty-two-inch flat-screen television. Like the legions of hedgies who crashed before him, Cusack was looking for a job. Only he was interviewing in a market where employers treated every applicant like a case of hives.
    Financial organizations were spooked. The Dow’s modest decline, 2 percent during the first quarter, belied the market’s growing angst. In February of 2008 General Motors announced a $38.7 billion loss for the previous year. Bear Stearns self-detonated, and many hedge funds lost their shirts in the fallout from subprime mortgages and other toxic assets. There was little to cheer, except perhaps for the resignation of New York’s governor, which appealed to Wall Street’s cult of schadenfreude.
    From Cusack’s perspective there had been one bright spot, one ray of good news since December. Sydney and his former employees all found jobs, thanks to a kick-save deal he negotiated with another hedge fund. Their financial security meant that he had one less reason to flog himself for past mistakes.
    Too bad he was never offered a job.
    *   *   *
    Earlier that Wednesday morning, Cusack’s lawyer told him what to expect from Litton. “Most likely, it’s a demand notice, Jimmy, what we call a ‘forty-five-day letter.’ That’s how long you have to pay principal, interest, and late charges.”
    “What about penalties, Smitty?” Cusack knew the answer without asking his attorney.
    “The bank has the right to defend its financial interests.”
    “Meaning I pay their legal fees?”
    “Somebody does.” Smitty almost sounded sheepish. “Does your lender escrow for taxes and insurance?”
    “Yes.”
    “You need to pay those costs, too,” the lawyer advised.
    “What if I can’t bring the loan current?”
    “What about your wife?” suggested Smitty.
    “Emi is a scientist at a zoo. She can’t afford a three-million mortgage.”
    “That’s not what I mean.