THE FLOOR: Episode 2

Boardroom Burglary - Part 1

“It’s a very safe building.  You don’t need a doorman.  I’ll throw a brand new Medeco lock set on your door.  Nobody can duplicate the fancy key, without a card and secret code.  Just sign here.  Gimme a check for two months at $860 apiece, and it’s yours.” 

My landlord is right out of Central Casting.  Marty’s half-eaten lunch is a heart attack on a roll.  His basement office is a fire hazard. Exposed light bulbs hover over precarious stacks of unfiled paperwork that would make any IRS agent call for backup. 

“The crack epidemic has you worried about security and break-ins on the Upper East Side.  Keep the latch engaged on the fire escape, and you should be fine.” 

The Village Voice classified ad forgot to mention that my “city views” from 84th Street are obstructed by a hefty fire escape window gate. $860 for a free man’s prison.

A second window with an air conditioner looks onto a brick building. Its roofline hovers only four feet away.  An unused, impassable alley lies five floors below.

My studio apartment sits on the top floor of a sometimes-elevator building, across the street from a tiny, horrible nightclub.  Live Psychic overplays the only B-52’s song that I actively despise, “Love Shack!”

All brands go to zero, at some point. That’s brands with an R. (But bands do too.)

Down the block on 84th and 2nd Avenue lies Dorrian’s Red Hand, where Robert Chambers picked up Jennifer Levin, prior to the notorious preppy murder in Central Park.  Patrons also frequent cash-only JG Melon, located just a few blocks south.

According to David Brown from the High Grade Fixed Income department, his Deerfield Academy buddy Whit Stillman filmed scenes from Metropolitan there.  This living room-based, no-action thriller features a middle-class stowaway.

A scholarship kid Tom adopts the affectations of a Park Avenue brat. He quotes books he has not even read but confidently grasps the parlor culture’s attention nonetheless.

Tom’s pedigree is falsely presumed by his prep school friends, because poor people normally do not talk like him.

These debutante kids believe that their peer Tom is a “reverse snob.” When he actually takes the New York City public bus out of financial necessity, they think he’s just being ironic.

David Brown is supposedly the basis of the articulate, bespectacled Metropolitan character, played by Taylor Nichols.

Love Shack Shambles

Three months into my lease, I return from a Broadway play to find my studio apartment turned upside down.  Even fancy Medeco locks only work on the outside.

Some crack addict entered through that window without the gate.

Every drawer is pulled onto the oak floor.  The Panasonic answering machine is gone, along with the premium Maxell Chrome cassette tape.

Every electronic gadget is missing, besides the VCR remote and my black-and-white TV, spray-painted a textured, granite grey. It looks like Fred Flintstone’s television.

The sentimental roll of Peppermint Life Savers from my father’s hospital bedside remains, but the gold cuff links are all gone. 

Flimsy green Polo luggage comes free with every bottle of cologne at Macy’s. Mine is complicit in the larceny of Brooks Brothers dress shirts and ties. They packed my Ralph Lauren suitcase and walked out the front door onto 84th Street.

The perp climbed onto a monstrous Amana air conditioner from the adjacent rooftop. He obviously pulled my upper window down and then climbed in.  Filthy handprints are smeared on the wall. My neighbor calls the NYPD for me. 

A freckly Irish beat cop delivers tonight’s bad news with a solution. "Crack may be whack according to Keith Haring, but this isn’t Hunter.  We don’t dust for prints. By the way, let’s have a moment of silence. They’re cancelling my favorite cop show.”

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t watched TV since last year. I just watch movies like Dumb & Dumber, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Addams Family Values, Heathers and Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.”

“Pee Wee is filming a sequel, if that perks you up. You know, in light of recent events, since you are now back in the market for some new shirts and ties, my wife said that Macy’s has another one-day-sale event tomorrow.  They have them all the time now."

I go to Herald Square the next day, after work.

The mortgage-backed guru Warren Specter asked me to meet him “after the bell” this week in his office, adjacent to Chuck Ramsay and Eddie Rappa.  I will wear my deeply discounted new tie from Macy’s.

Everyone has a bitch.  Today, I am Nick’s but no longer really give a shit about this job.  The figurative writing is on the Polo-papered wall.

My future at Bear Stearns can be measured in weeks.

Stale Pastry & Condescension

Keeping old axe sheets help us to remember who wanted to buy or sell particular bonds, in the recent past. We call it agency trading, playing matchmaker. Traders at brokerage firms like Bear Stearns connect buyers with sellers, playing a commission-generating Wall Street version of the card game “Concentration.”

The grown-up playing cards here are OPM or Other People’s Money.  Just like the movie with Danny DeVito that came out this year. (Wrong numbers will never be the same again, after that scene at his desk.) Money managers pay us less than 5% of the entire trade’s value, either to buy or to sell something for them anonymously.

Outsiders are often surprised to hear that a typical bond commission is only 1/4 point or 0.0025% of the entire bond trade’s principal value. For every $1 million bought or sold, that amounts to roughly $2,500. Regulators get angry above $50,000.

Broker-dealer firms sometimes invest their own money, for both inventory and investment purposes. Just like an art dealer, a bond dealer may hold positions in companies that it understands well. That’s called principal trading. It takes on risk.

Group decisions are typically made by consensus between research, trading and sales people. The morning junk bond meeting takes place daily in the 7th Floor Executive Boardroom, after the big-wig huddle.

SMD’s like Warren Specter, Ralph Cioffi, Chuck Ramsey, Alan Schwartz, Jimmy Caine, Michael Payte or Eddie Rappa leave stale pastries and lukewarm coffee behind for the rank and file employees.

Nick has an investment idea for Bear Stearns this morning.

“Together as a department, we should buy lots of Macy’s bonds.  It’s not going under!” she insists. In a fit of unexpected levity, she literally pounds the table and smiles around to all of us for approval.

She shakes her fist in the air with a forced smile, as if to rally support. Without setting foot in the store for years, Nick wants us to take a leaping bet on a stressed retailer, burdened with too much overhead.

Macy’s is choking on inventory. Published financial results and my own shirt and tie replacement visits say so.

A loud silence takes over the room with a thud, while salesmen and traders shrink into their comfy chairs.  I shake my head in disapproval. Coworkers are hesitant to call out the worst investment idea of the year.

Instead of waiting for the bonds to cusp and recover, she wants to catch a falling knife with OPM. The firm’s OPM. Not hers.

Anyone paying attention to everyday life in New York knows that Macy’s is falling apart.  Only Nick thinks that this is smart.  The entire department fears for their jobs.  With the arrival of the Drexel crew, her tenure is possibly as precarious as my own.

This is the Hail Mary pass of her Bear Stearns tenure. Mine too.

“We should probably do some basic due diligence first.  I was there last night and bought ties for 80% off.  Let’s not buy bonds, based solely upon spreadsheets.  We’re catching a falling knife. The flagship store is a cab ride away.”

The insubordinate clerical help snaps the research meeting talking stick from the boss.

“Three different families put products back on the shelf, in anticipation of yet another one-day-sale.  Customers are now addicted to the fire sales.” 

Emboldened by this afternoon’s interview and possible escape plan, my active participation in this morning’s meeting meets with Nick’s swift disapproval. 

“Your untrained observations are a distraction.  You are here to listen and learn silently. Just take notes!”

I don’t need to. I will remember this forever.