The Samurai Strategy Part 20

"Well, what is it you want?"

"A small favor."

"You have got to be kidding."

"Not for me. It's the country I'm concerned about. That includes you.

How about doing the U.S. a favor and leak a heavy rumor from the world of high finance. The American dollar, dear to us all, may be about to go the way of Confederate mustard plasters. I'll even dictate the statement for you."

"Matt, why don't you give this earth-shaking scoop to one of your big- shot connections down at The Wall Street Journal, a.s.suming it's such hot news?"

Good question. The answer, sadly, was that n.o.body inside the system would want to even hear this kind of talk, let alone spread it.

Everybody in the financial community was already whistling in the dark, terrified those Latin American debt dominos might start to tumble, taking a few of our flagship banks along with them. And now this? No way.

"Donna, I need somebody willing to go out on a limb."

"You s.h.i.t." She gave a snort. "I let you mortify me once. And believe me that's the last--"

"Will you _listen_, for chrissake. I know it sounds crazy, but this is dead serious. I've taken on a foreign investment firm as a client. I can't tell you the name, but I'm absolutely sure the guy running it is about to screw this country somehow. He's been shorting the bond market, and now he's going to start dumping dollars. Billions and billions. I want to blow the whistle. Get something on the air that'll cause a few bankers and traders to look up from their computer terminals and--"

"Matthew, darling, how about your doing me a favor?"

"Name it."

"Simple. Don't ever call me here again. And while you're at it, tell that a.s.shole friend of yours, Bill Henderson, I think he's the biggest-- "

"Look, I'm genuinely contrite about the scene he caused at your place.

If--"

"Good." Click, then the hum of a New York Tel dial tone.

Maybe she was right. Maybe I was seeing things. In any case, that aborted Monday's attempted guerrilla war against Matsuo Noda. Now to man my barricades.

Which moment coincided with the sound of Emma Epstein's key in the front-door lock. The time, obviously, was exactly one-thirty P.M.

Exactly. I waited till she'd settled in before taking the fatal step.

"Emma, how about bringing me that file in your left-hand desk drawer.

The one marked 'Trust Account.'"

"The blue one?"

"Right. Amy's. You know it. You updated the thing about a month ago when I switched all her money out of stocks and into money-market funds." That move had been my one small attempt to ride Noda's horse in the direction I suspected it was headed.

"I remember." She glanced at me disdainfully. "I also remember you predicted interest rates were about to go up."

Which, she was tactful enough not to add, they hadn't. She also didn't mention she had greeted my market prognosis with open skepticism. As usual.

"Well, for what it's worth, I still think rates are headed up soon. And Emma . . ."

"What?" She was grimly digging through the files.

"Ever think about some gold stocks for your retirement investments?

There're some mining issues I hear look good. Golden Sceptre, Golaith, Vanderbilt . . ."

"That's Amy's portfolio you wanted, correct?" She didn't miss a beat.

"Right?"

She doted on Amy and always got very testy whenever I dabbled in the management of my daughter's little nest egg. It's galling to admit Emma's market instincts did at times seem superior to mine. John Maynard Keynes once said there's nothing so disastrous as a rational investment policy in an irrational world. Maybe he was right: could be I was shackled by too much logical introspection. Never a problem for Emma. All I know is, if her daughter-in-law in Jersey phoned in (on my line) that she'd just baked a terrific cherry pie using "New Improved!"

Crisco, Emma marched out and loaded up on Procter & Gamble. And the d.a.m.n thing automatically went up ten points.

"Here it is." She placed it on my desk with a decidedly disapproving sniff.

"Thanks."

Dear Lord, I thought, stand by us sinners now and at the hour of our death. I went over it quickly with a hand calculator. About ninety-four thousand. Which I figured would pay for roughly a year and a half of college the way those already inflated costs were skyrocketing. But by the time Noda got finished with the dollar, it probably wouldn't cover a weekend seminar.

Maybe I couldn't save the U.S., but I was d.a.m.ned well going to get my daughter through school. With fear and trembling I started calling banks. Naturally I spread the action around town, BS'ing a lot of currency traders and bank FOREX (foreign exchange) departments in the process. I'd buy some pounds sterling, then . . . by the way, long as we're on the phone, Mort, I think I might need a few million yen in, oh, say about a month. Why don't we just save time and write some contracts now? Besides, bird in the hand, you know. Then I'd take those pounds I'd just acquired and use them to buy several million deutsche- mark forwards from the next dealer I knew.

How much did I go out, total? Remember, currency forwards run around a penny on the dollar, so I effectively "sold" something like ten million greenbacks, deliverable in one month, when I figured they'd be worth .

. . it was hard even to imagine. Most likely zilch. Since I was flying blind. Amy's college fund bought everything. You name it, I went long.

She ended up owning futures on Swiss francs, German marks, yen, lira, pounds sterling, Canadian dollars, even French francs. I was actually tempted, briefly, by the peso (well, she loved her trip to Mexico last summer), a sentimental gesture I sternly resisted.

By the time I'd finished it was four forty-five, meaning my new, ninth- grade owner of a United Nations basket of foreign currencies had just arrived home from her West Side private school. She always charged in at four-thirty. I called Joanna and asked to speak to my daughter. Jo's response to the sound of my voice was only slightly less fulsome than Donna Austen's. Finally Amy appeared at my ear.

"Dad, how come you're calling on the downstairs phone? You're supposed to always use the one in my room. Mom hates it when--"

"Sweetie, that line is in constant and uninterrupted engagement between the hours of four thirty-one and eight- fifteen. It's never possible to reach you there at this time."

"Okay, so what's up?"

"Nothing much. How about if you and I caught up on things a bit? What do you say to dinner tonight? Just the two of us? We might even consider a real grown-up meal for a change, no alfalfa sprouts."

"Where?" She was immediately on guard. What if she ended up confronted with a red-tinged steak, sliced off one of the living mammals of the earth?

"Anywhere. Someplace you've always wanted to go. My treat."

"Wow! Anywhere?"

"Your pick."

Long pause, then, "How about Windows on the World?"

"Sounds good." I guessed one of her school friends had just been.

Meaning prestige was on the line. I was right.

"Sharon's dad took her there last weekend for her birthday and it sounded really neat. She said you can see everything. It's probably a lot nicer than Top of the Six's."

Where, in case you hadn't guessed, I'd taken her on _her _birthday.

"Food's standard, but I think we can piece together a spread that'll meet your guidelines. Will your mother let you go?" Joanna had total weekday custody, and she played it for all it was worth.