THE TAINTED TRUST (Volume 2 of The King Trilogy)

CHAPTER 21

     Black Monday, October 19, 1987. 7:30 P.M.

Shortly after Visconti's chartered Lear 55C landed at La Guardia, he deposited Marylin Daring in a taxi, prepaid the driver and sent her home. He climbed into a black airport limousine and told the driver to take him to his Fifth Avenue apartment. Heavy traffic brought the limousine to a complete stop when the driver attempted to cross the East River on the Queensboro Bridge.

After a painful wait of more than ten minutes, the driver smiled at Visconti and broke a prolonged silence. "Guess the bridges of New York will be gettin' a pretty good workout tonight, sir."

Confused by the statement, Visconti faked a smile. "I'm sorry. I don't understand."

"A whole lotta people will be using the bridges to end it all. That's for sure."

Visconti's smile evaporated. "Why?" he asked, nerves twanging.

"You haven't heard?" the driver asked, wide eyed. "The market. It took a big hit today. Real big."

"How big?"

"Over five hundred points."

Visconti's heart pounded wildly. "No!" he groaned.

"Yah, they're talkin' about this thing makin' twenty-nine look like a small correction...Were you in the market?"

"You could say that," Visconti muttered, beads of sweat bathing his forehead. "Take me to the World Trade Center, South Tower, as fast as you can get there?" he ordered, then turned to stare at the water below. Shocked and stunned by the news he had just heard, he trembled involuntarily and pondered the implications.

Entering his office ninety minutes later, Visconti switched on the lights, then hurried to his computer.

His worst fears unfolded before his eyes as he scrolled through the day's closing market data on his monitor. He wondered how the Crown Prince of Wall Street could possibly explain his incompetence. He was fully invested in high risk volatile stocks, totally exposed and completely out of touch when the disaster struck. The only conclusion anyone could reach was that he had been careless, stupid and irresponsible.

His first priority was to quantify the damage. He began with the King's trust, by far the most exposed. When the figures appeared on his screen, they exceeded his worst expectations. Even though he knew the computer never lied, he checked and rechecked the data. The computer continued to give him the same horrifying results. While he was recklessly cavorting with a meaningless bimbo in the Bahamas, the King's trust had sustained a paper loss of almost a half a billion dollars.

At the close of business on Monday, October 19, 1987, the value of the trust had dropped to three hundred and thirty-two million dollars, very close to its value on July 12, 1980, the day Visconti assumed its management. So, after more than seven years of management of the trust, The Crown Prince of Wall Street had managed zero growth.

He stood and walked to his window. While he stared blankly at his pale reflection, the horrible reality of the disaster attacked him. The coincidence was outrageous. The first time in years he had chosen a weekend sanctuary from the constancy of stress, the market had simultaneously taken a dive of historic proportions.

When he shifted his focus to the lights of the city below, his thoughts were of the following day, and what further horrors it would bring. The optimism with which he had viewed the financial world had been abruptly crushed. Suddenly he had been reduced to a mere mortal, vulnerable to loss. The great Louis Visconti had experienced his first failure, his self-esteem mortally wounded.

Shaken and trembling, he returned to his computer to review the remainder of the funds he managed. Fortunately, none had been so exposed as the King's trust. As he reached to key in the access code of another portfolio, he glanced at his monitor. One particular item caught his attention. In sharp contrast to all other items in the King's trust, the October crude oil short position miraculously showed a profit.

Visconti keyed in the closing commodity prices on the Nymex. The spot price of West Texas Intermediate had dropped to sixteen dollars and fifty-five cents a barrel. Again he was reminded of his conversation with Assif Raza. He rubbed his face and covered his eyes with his hands. "Were you right about that, Assif?" he asked aloud. There had to be a reason for the market to have sustained such a terrible loss. Maybe the economy was heading into a deep recession, or depression. If it was, demand for commodities would slow and demand for crude oil would collapse. The price would go through the floor.

After a brief and troubled sleep in his Manhattan apartment, Visconti returned to his office at nine-thirty the following morning. The atmosphere resembled a funeral home when he entered and traversed the open office area. No one spoke or smiled. He marched directly to his office while remaining stiff-lipped and scrupulously avoiding eye contact with anyone.

Jerry Mara knocked softly, then entered. "...Sorry, Louis...You have no idea how hard we tried to reach you. We even..."

"It's not your fault, Jerry," Visconti interrupted. "I'm the idiot who disappeared at the most important time in the history of the market."

"Is there anything we can do?"

"Just give me some time alone. I'm going to need it."

"Shout if there's anything," Mara said, then left.