The Devil's Deal

chapter

6

Promises, promises

Looking back, I can now see that Jerry’s inuence was not always

positive.

He started earlier and stayed later than anyone in the ofce. But

his lunchtimes – and waistline – were expanding to compensate.

I learned not to expect much wisdom from him when he

stumbled back from The Blackfriars pub at three in the afternoon.

Mind you, he did teach me about trading derivatives, even if his

method was a little peculiar.

I could smell the gin even before I entered his glass ofce. Jerry

stretched back in his chair and yawned. ‘I have two questions

for you,’ he said, scratching a match along the underside of his

mahogany table.

‘What are they?’

The naked position

‘Do you want to learn about derivatives? And do you want to see

Brenda Leckie take her clothes off?’

Brenda was our lovely, but rather frumpy, head of compliance.

She sat on the other side of the glass partition, seemingly

oblivious to Jerry and his silly plots. ‘Yes to the derivatives but

no to the clothes.’

‘Tough.’ Jerry lit his cigarette on the third attempt, his hand

uttering unsteadily in front of his face. ‘You can’t have one

without the other.’

Welcome to the jungle72

‘OK.’ Well, it was Friday afternoon and no work was being done.

And Jerry, of course, was my boss and mentor, so it was smart to

keep on his right side.

‘Good man.’ Jerry rummaged in a desk drawer and pulled out the

remote control for the air conditioning which had been installed

as part of Saiwai’s refurbishment. He angled it towards Brenda’s

gold-sh bowl ofce. ‘How long do you reckon?’

‘I doubt you can do it in less than sixty seconds, Jerry. Any time

after that, you owe me.’ If Jerry could make Brenda remove

her jacket in less than sixty seconds he’d win. If it took longer,

victory would be mine. But it wasn’t simply a matter of bragging

rights. For each second below sixty, I needed to pay Jerry. And

he’d have to pay me for each second above the magic number.

All that remained was to gure out what each second was worth.

‘How much per second?’ he asked.

‘A pound?’

‘Make it ten.’ In a way he’d won the bet already. Ten pounds

a second meant nothing to a man of Jerry’s wealth. For me, it

meant the difference between living the high life for a month or

staying in every night with cornakes and TV.

He winked when he saw my worried face. ‘Start the clock!’ he

shouted.

Fifteen seconds ticked past, and there was no reaction from the

bowl. Jerry saw me smile, and immediately raised the stakes.

‘Fancy your chances, do you? Want to make it more interesting?

Twenty pounds a second?’

This was real money at stake now. Enough to hurt. Like a fool

I nodded agreement. Twenty-ve seconds gone. No movement

from the comfortably settled Brenda Leckie, but then her PA, a

lad from Manchester called Dan or Stan or something, blew out

a puff of air.

‘Look at him waving his hands around!’ shrieked Jerry. ‘Must be

getting mighty hot in there.’