Last night, Cerise and I dined at a pricey and elegant restaurant which recently opened on K Street. For reasons that will soon become evident, however, I won’t mention the name of that establishment in this post.
It came as a shock, I must say, when the sommelier approached our table. He approached from behind me, so apparently the back of my head was not distinctive enough to alert him to my identity, and, as luck would have it, he had, up until last night, never met Cerise.
“Good evening,” he cooed, smarmy as an Episcopalian undertaker eyeing the checkbook of a dead Presbyterian pederast’s wife, as I watched a jet-black padded wine list, apparently upholstered in the heavily tanned hide of unborn calves, glide over my right shoulder onto our table, “we offer an award-winning and exclusive collection of vintage estate-bottled whites, reds, champagnes and specialty wines to accompany every course, from appetizer to…”
“Nussglanzer? Ira Nussglanzer?” His face turned ashen as I spoke and turned to look at him.
“Collins?” He whispered as he glanced over his shoulder nervously. “Tom Collins?”
“Guilty as charged,” I responded in a wry tone. It was scarcely a second before Nussglanzer’s wobbling knees informed me that my choice of words may not have been the perfect one.
It is not often that an awkward silence ensues among a gentleman of the world, his vivacious, stunning companion and their sommelier, but last night, I witnessed one. “Cerise,” I began, attempting to break the spell, “this is Ira, a… friend of Veronica’s.”
“Oh, yes,” Cerise purred, extending her hand to our now visibly sweating sommelier, “Veronica’s been staying at Tom’s place in Great Falls, Virginia, for quite a while now. But then again, I suppose you know where she lives.”
“Charmed,” Nussglanzer gushed as he first withdrew a linen napkin from his pants pocket, then wiped his brow with it, after which he took Cerise’s hand and gave it a light peck instead of a handshake.
“Are you and Veronica still… seeing one another these days?” Cerise threw Nussglanzer a sly, slightly catty look.
“Um, no, actually,” Nussglanzer confessed. “We… that is, she… ah, well, you see, when I… made my most recent career change… we decided to… continue as friends.”
“Ira used to be a hedge fund manager at Bear Stearns,” I explained, as the opening strains of Mozart’s concerto for flute and harp announced that Cerise had a cell phone call.
“Oh, hi,” she began in her melodious and entrancing contralto. “Downtown, having dinner before the theater. You know, I can’t really say; we haven’t actually eaten anything here yet; but the wine list certainly looks… intriguing. Yes, dear, ‘we’ means me and Tom. Of course not… Absolutely. Tell me about it. All right, you go, girl! Oh, no, come on! Get out! Sure. Well, if he doesn’t, I will – don’t worry about it.”
I watched, somewhat puzzled, as Cerise gave her caller the restaurant’s name and address.
“… Really? That’s right around the corner! Okay, then,” Cerise concluded, “see you in a few.”
There is a certain look that a woman adopts when concocting mischief, and extensive experience allowed me to clearly read it on Cerise’s face as she put her cell phone away. Nussglanzer, on the other hand, apparently noticed nothing, which was consistent with his degree of experience with women – by which I mean, women who are something other than call girls, of course. After all, Nussglanzer used to work on Wall Street. But he was, or at least had been when he was a hedge fund manager, exactly the sort of man that my accidental roommate Veronica considers her lawful prey – rich and getting richer, yet constantly obsessed with emotional insecurity, needy to the point of crippling neurosis and very close to completely clueless concerning the true nature of the fairer (and decidedly more dangerous) sex.
“Another person will be joining you, then?” Nussglanzer inquired, adopting the solicitous manner of the posh restaurateur with what I must say were mixed results.
“Apparently so,” I confirmed as Cerise winked, now smiling at me like Puck on Cambodian moonflower juice. In a trice, Nussglanzer snapped his fingers and ordered a pathetic, groveling and, let’s face the facts here – gratuitously self-effacing Central American busboy to set another place at our table, which was, in fact, capable of accommodating four. Excuse me, I guess, but my idea of superior service does not entail, or require, obsequious debasement. Call me old fashioned if you like, but back in the day, only uncultivated boors, undeserving of their social positions, ever sought to deprive English or Continental servants of their dignity. Here in twenty-first century America, of course, any idiot with a wad of cash large enough to get into a notable gustatory establishment expects everyone working there to kiss their sweaty, smelly, cracked and toe-jam infested feet (which they dusted with Desenex just for the occasion) like Jonesing crack whores begging for a hit off the glass Johnson. It’s shameful, pitiful and disgusting, that’s what it is. Operating an establishment where knowledgeable patrons run the risk of realizing that the dishwashers have more class than the other members of the clientele sitting around them stuffing foie gras and Beluga caviar down their gullets is probably not a winning strategy in a business as competitive as gourmet dining, either, but it was obvious that Nussglanzer, having recently been just such an idiot, relished his role as master of ceremonies.
“Thank you,” I told the busboy as he completed his task, causing Nussglanzer to gape at me in such astonishment, one would have thought I had suddenly stood up and pulled down my pants. I could tell he was beginning to say something, but then restrained himself.
“There were more than four hundred arrests on Friday,” Cerise remarked while gazing pointedly at Nussglanzer. “Mortgage meltdown fraud cases. The FBI is rounding up crooks on Wall Street like the Coast Guard pouncing on a Colombian marijuana convoy that accidently sailed up the Miami River.”
“Yeah,” I chimed in, “the word is, a couple of Bear Stearns hedge fund managers, named Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, allegedly swindled the usual assortment of suckers out of about one point six billion bucks all by themselves. Lord knows what the FBI will claim the other three-hundred ninety eight alleged lying, thieving scum bags allegedly did.”
Cerise gave me a curious look. “What do you mean by ‘the usual assortment of suckers?’”
“Oh, you know, a gaggle of Ivy League twits with no common sense whose family and connections got them jobs where they’re in charge of huge amounts of money that belongs to widows, orphans and old people; plus a swarm of Joe and Jane Blows with 401(k) or other private investment accounts.”
Cerise’s look turned from curious to miffed as she turned from me to Nussglanzer. “Securities fraud – misleading investors, lying about material attributes of financial instruments – and conspiracy, too; that’s pretty nasty stuff, isn’t it, fraud and conspiracy on a billion-dollar scale?”
“Absolutely,” Nussglanzer eagerly concurred.
“Good for how much jail time?” Cerise gazed pointedly at me.
“I’m no lawyer,” I pleaded, “but I think I read they could get seven to ten years, if they are, of course, convicted; and we need to recognize that, unless that happens, both of them must be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Furthermore, we should also bear in mind that Cioffi and Tannin might very well just be a couple of perfectly nice, regular, honest guys – like the guys you’d meet at your local youth group picnic, tossing baseballs to cute kids trying out that mitt they got for their birthday, or the guys you’d find sitting, with their family, next to your own family at the neighborhood cineplex, enjoying the latest uplifting, action-packed, family-oriented, family-values blockbuster. It could turn out, at the end of the day, in the fullness of time, that these men are, in fact, hardworking, clean-living, patriotic guys who love their country and their families, particularly their dear, sainted mothers, their sweet, respectful, angel-faced children, their faithful, devoted, stalwart, lovely, virtuous wives and their adorable little family dogs, Barney and Checkers, respectively; gentlemen who, in fact, wouldn’t even imagine doing anything illegal and who are, in reality, simply being callously used by heartless, incompetent, headline-grubbing government operatives as hapless scapegoats for other people’s regrettably bad judgment, as I’m sure their large and expensive teams of high-powered attorneys are preparing to argue, even as we speak.”
“Seven to ten years?” Cerise was clearly taken aback. “Is that all? How can they be so lenient? Why don’t they have stiffer sentences for securities fraud conspiracy?”
“Well,” I rationalized, “it is a non-violent crime, after all.”
“Poor people get huge prison terms for non-violent crime,” Cerise protested. “There are tens of thousands of poor people doing twenty and thirty year sentences for stuff like writing bad checks, dealing in stolen goods or engaging in prostitution. And I bet if you added up the ill-gotten gains for all of them, for all of their crimes, for all of their lives, it wouldn’t be anywhere near one point six billion dollars.”
“First offense,” I meekly suggested. “The law always takes that into account; along with how serious the crime is, of course. The length of incarceration is supposed to reflect, among other things, based on the frequency of infraction and impact of the offenses, how great a menace to society the convicted miscreant poses. Convicts serving twenty or thirty year terms got those sentences because, on that basis, they are considered to present a significant menace to society.”
“Good Lord Almighty,” Cerise exclaimed, “Excuse me, but how many times does someone have to steal a billion dollars before they are considered a significant menace to society?”
“You got me there,” I conceded. “That’s a very good question.”
“Given what you know now,” Cerise asked Nussglanzer, “does betting on sub-prime mortgage derivatives to win, place and show sound like a good idea?”
“Ah, well, you have to realize,” Nussglanzer whimpered, “that an awful lot of people on Wall Street were doing it.”
“And if an awful lot of people on Wall Street do something,” I pursued, “that makes doing it a good idea?”
“I’d have to say yes, it does,” Nussglanzer confessed.
“So, as I learned in middle school,” Cerise remarked, “back in October of 1929, a lot of people in the stock market jumped out their windows and made big, bloody splatters on the sidewalk. Therefore, if we follow the reasoning you just espoused, opening a skyscraper window, jumping out and landing on Wall Street might be a good idea for a lot of self-proclaimed ‘financial experts’ these days.”
“There’s no doubt,” Nussglanzer admitted, “that it was a good idea in 1929. But not anymore.”
“Why not?” Cerise peered at him expectantly.
“Because,” he replied morosely, “these days, you can’t open the windows on Wall Street skyscrapers.”
“So instead of that,” Cerise darkly teased, “you decided to become a sommelier?”
“When my hedge fund collapsed,” Nussglanzer related, “the market for my talents was declining… ah, precipitously.”
“And recommending wines,” I speculated, “beats driving a cab, I’m sure.”
“It does indeed,” Nussglanzer confirmed.
“I bet it beats making license plates, too,” Cerise giggled. “I hear the feds allege that Cioffi was bailing out of his own position in bond securities while assuring his investors there was nothing to worry about. But obviously, you never did anything like that, or you’d be sitting at the next table ordering wine yourself – although maybe fresh out of a federal courthouse on bail, eh?”
“Yes, a lot of other people were doing that kind of thing,” Nussglanzer informed us while throwing Cerise a slightly reproving frown, “but a lot of others actually believed what they were saying.”
“And you,” I surmised, “were one of those?”
“I was, indeed” he sighed, ruefully. “I thought that the markets were over-reacting to the numbers, and so I kept my money in the debt derivatives market, just like the investors in my hedge fund did.”
“So,” Cerise chided, “you went down with your ship like…”
“The captain of the Titanic,” he choked out miserably. “Oh, I tried to recover, of course, but after the sub-prime snowball got started down the hill, well, as I’m sure you both know, about the only investment that wouldn’t wipe a person out completely was selling for cash and stuffing it under the bedroom mattress.”
“But,” I commented, “as we can see, you couldn’t bring yourself to go that far. So what did you do instead?”
“I… I just couldn’t put it in a bank account,” Nussglanzer confided as his face lit up crimson with shame. “No, I kept looking at the interest rate and thinking how puny it was. And I didn’t want to put it in T-bills, either, because the interest rates on those pretty much sucked, too, and I wanted more liquidity so… I… I put my last eight hundred grand in auction rate securities.”
“And what happened,” Cerise prodded, “when the ARS market evaporated overnight last February?”
“Well,” Nussglanzer shrugged, “as I’m sure you know, the banks let the owners of auction rate securities use them as the basis for a credit line, so in March, I took out an LOC for the maximum amount I could get…”
“Four hundred grand?” I asked.
“Correct,” Nussglanzer confirmed.
“And then what?” Cerise needled, curious.
“I started trading commodities. I couldn’t help it – I felt like I had to do something, I needed to keep on being a player! But then I got totally wiped out in a crude oil futures margin call,” Nussglanzer softly wailed, “and shortly after that, my mortgage payments went through the roof and when I couldn’t sell my house, I got foreclosed. So now, I do this. Speaking of which, would either of you like wine with your meal?”
“Ira!”
Nussglanzer turned, took one look at Veronica, and fainted. A brief but quite intense brouhaha ensued, during which the maitre d’hote worked assiduously to revive his sommelier. Veronica, however, was totally nonchalant as she took her seat with Cerise and me.
“So that’s what happened to him,” she mused, watching the proceedings with the blasé attitude of someone taking in a novelty floor show. “What’s he do here?”
“He’s the wine steward,” Cerise replied.
“Really?” Veronica gave the supine and pallid Nussglanzer a quick, derisive look. “I did my usual background check on him when we started dating, you know, and I can assure you, he must have gotten the job on the basis of what he learned about wine when he was ordering it on Bear Stearns expense account lunches, because he certainly never received any formal training in… oh, what’s that called…”
“Oneology,” I suggested.
“Yeah, that,” Veronica vouched, “and he certainly never worked as a wine steward before, either. I bet,” she whispered, “he lied on his résumé, just like he did so he could get a job a Bear Stearns.”
“No!” Cerise was immediately fascinated, of course. “He didn’t!”
“Seriously,” she assured us, “I know for a fact, his Bear Stearns résumé had more whoppers than a Burger King.” Veronica leaned closer, whispering just a bit lower. “Instead of having graduated summa cum laude from Cambridge University with a degree in applied econometric mathematics and a minor in computer science, and receiving an MBA from Wharton in quantitative finance, Ira really only holds a two-year Associates Degree in retail outlet management with a major in collectable comics marketing and a minor in action figure curation from Peter Pryor Community College in Hoboken, New Jersey.”
“So,” Cerise concluded, “those morons at Bear Stearns are bigger suckers than their customers!” And at the sound of that, Nussglanzer finally came around.
But, I am sad to say, after he took just one look at Veronica and Cerise, laughing at him so hard tears ran down their cheeks, the poor devil fainted again.