Numbered Account

CHAPTER 2

The office of the Director of Personnel (Finance Division) was located at the far corner of the first floor. Nick paused outside an open door and knocked twice before entering. Inside, a slender woman was bent over a messy desk, sorting through a collage of white papers. She wore an ivory blouse and a navy skirt that fell one frustrated sigh below her knee. Brushing a wave of hair from her face, she rose from the desk to stare at her visitor.

“May I help you?” she asked.

“I’m here to see Dr. Schon,” Nick said. “I’ve just begun work this morning and—”

“Your name, please? We have six new employees beginning today. First Monday of the month.”

Her stern voice made him want to square his shoulders, fire off a salute, and bark out his name, rank, and serial number. That would make her jump. He told her who he was, and recalling Sprecher’s comments about his posture, made sure he didn’t stand too straight.

“Hmm,” she said, suddenly interested. “Our American. Please come in.” The woman craned her neck and ran a none too discreet eye over him, as if checking to see what the bank had gotten for its money. Apparently satisfied, she asked in a friendlier voice if he’d had a good flight over.

“Not bad,” Nick said, returning her appraising stare. “It gets a little cramped back there after a few hours, but at least we had smooth sailing.”

She was shorter by a head with intelligent brown eyes and thick blond hair cut to fall in a slant across her brow. A gracefully upturned chin and a sharp nose conspired to lend her an air of assumed importance. She told him to wait a moment, then stepped through an open door that led to an adjoining office.

Nick removed his hands from his pockets and without thinking wiped his palms on the rear of his trousers. He had known a woman like her before. Confident, assertive, a little too professional. A woman who relied on perfect grooming to improve on nature’s careless oversights. In fact, he had almost married her.

“Please come in, Mr. Neumann.”

He recognized the stern voice. Poised behind a broad desk sat the woman with the intelligent brown eyes. A testy one, Sprecher had warned, who didn’t care for Americans. She had tucked her blond hair behind her ears and found a blazer to match her skirt. A large pair of horn-rimmed glasses rested on her nose.

“I’m sorry,” Nick said sincerely, “I didn’t realize…” His explanation petered out.

“Sylvia Schon,” she announced, standing and extending a hand across the desk. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. It’s not often the Chairman recommends a new graduate.”

“He was a friend of my father’s. They worked together.” Nick shook his head as if to dismiss the connection. “It was a long time ago.”

“So I understand. But the bank doesn’t forget its own. We’re big on loyalty around here.” She motioned for him to sit down and when he had, lowered herself into her chair. “I hope you don’t mind my asking a few questions. I take pride in knowing everyone who works in our department. Usually we insist on several interviews before extending an offer.”

“I appreciate any exceptions that were made on my behalf. Actually, I did interview with Dr. Ott in New York.”

“It was rather perfunctory, I imagine.”

“Dr. Ott and I covered a lot of ground. If you’re asking whether he went easy on me, he didn’t.”

Sylvia Schon raised an eyebrow and cocked her head as if to say, “Come now, Mr. Neumann, we both know you’re full of shit.” She was right, of course. His meeting with the bank’s vice chairman had been nothing more than an extended bull session. Ott was a short, fat, unctuous man, an unapologetic arm patter, and it seemed to Nick that he’d been told to paint the sunniest possible picture of life in Zurich and a career at the United Swiss Bank.

“Fourteen months,” she said. “That’s the longest one of our American recruits has lasted. You gentlemen come over for a European vacation, do a little skiing, take in the sights, and a year later you’re gone. Off to greener pastures.”

“If there’s been a problem, why don’t you conduct the interviews yourself?” he asked pleasantly, in counterpoint to her combative tone. “I’m sure you would have no problem weeding out the weaker candidates.”

Dr. Schon squinted her eyes, as if unsure whether he was a smart-ass or just an exceptionally perceptive individual. “An interesting question. Feel free to ask Dr. Ott next time you visit with him. Interviewing foreign candidates is his department. For now, though, let’s concentrate on you, shall we? Our refugee from Wall Street. I don’t imagine that a firm like Morgan Stanley often loses one of its best recruits after only four months.”

“I decided that I didn’t want to spend my career in New York. I’ve never had the opportunity to work in a foreign environment. I realized that if I wanted to move, the sooner the better.”

“So you quit like that?” She snapped her fingers.

Nick was beginning to find her aggressive tone irritating. “First I spoke with Herr Kaiser. He’d contacted me following my graduation in June and mentioned that he’d like me to come to the bank.”

“You didn’t consider anywhere else? London? Hong Kong? Tokyo? After all, if you were offered a position by Morgan Stanley, I’m sure there were other firms that went away disappointed. What brought you to Zurich?”

“I’d like to specialize in private banking, and for that Zurich’s the place. No one has a better reputation than USB.”

“So our reputation led you to our doorstep?”

Nick smiled. “Yes, exactly.”

Liar, said a determined voice from a dark corner of his soul. You would’ve come if the place was buried in shit and the last shovel had just broken.

“Remember, things move slowly here. Don’t expect a promotion to the executive board anytime soon. We’re less a meritocracy than you Americans are used to.”

“Minimum fourteen months,” said Nick. “I should just be settling in by then. Getting to know my way around.” He smiled broadly to let her know that he wasn’t put off by her predictions of a short stay and that she should get used to him. But behind the smile, the determined voice had the final say.

I’ll stay, it promised. Fourteen months or fourteen years. As long as it takes to discover why my father was murdered in the foyer of a close friend’s home.

Sylvia Schon brought her chair closer to her desk and studied some documents on it. The room fell silent. The tension of a first encounter dissipated. Finally, she looked up and smiled. “You’ve met Mr. Sprecher, I understand? Everything satisfactory?”

Nick said yes.

“He explained to you, I’m sure, that his department is a little shorthanded.”

“He said that Mr. Cerruti was ill. He’ll be back next week.”

“We hope so. Did he say anything else?”

Nick looked at her intently. She wasn’t smiling anymore. What was she tiptoeing around? “No. Just that Cerruti had contracted a virus on his business trip.”

Dr. Schon removed her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry to bring this up on your first day of work, but I think it’s best you hear it now. I don’t suppose you know about Mr. Becker. He also worked in FKB4. He was killed Christmas Eve. Stabbed to death not far from here. We’re still very upset. It’s an absolute tragedy.”

“He was the man killed on the Bahnhofstrasse?” Nick hadn’t recalled the name, but he recognized the facts from an article in a Swiss newspaper he’d read on the flight over. The brazen nature of the murder made for front-page news. Apparently, he’d been carrying some expensive jewelry. The police did not yet have a suspect, but the article had clearly stated that robbery was the motive. Somehow USB had managed to keep its name out of the paper.

“Yes. It’s appalling. As I said, we’re still in a state of shock.”

“I’m sorry,” Nick whispered.

“No, no. It’s I who must apologize. No one deserves to hear such terrible news on their first day of work.” Dr. Schon stood and circled her desk. A signal the meeting had come to its conclusion. She forced a smile to her lips. “I hope Mr. Sprecher won’t pass along too many of his bad habits. You should be with him only a few days. In the meantime, several other matters need to be taken care of. We’ll need a few photographs and your fingerprints, of course. Those can be taken down the hall, three doors to the right. And don’t let me forget to give you a copy of the bank’s handbook.” She brushed by him and walked to a cabinet against the near wall. She opened a drawer, then picked out a blue book and offered it to him.

“Should I wait down here for the ID card to be finished?” Nick peered at the handbook. It was half the size of a phone book and twice as thick. Rules, he heard Sprecher saying.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” boomed a rich, male voice.

Nick raised his head and looked directly into Wolfgang Kaiser’s beaming face. He took a step backward, though if it was from surprise or awe he did not know. Kaiser was his family’s grayest eminence: ever watching unseen from somewhere beyond the horizon. After so long, Nick was unsure how to greet him. As the man who had attended his father’s funeral and then accompanied the body to Switzerland for burial. As the distant benefactor who surfaced at odd moments across the years, sending congratulatory cards upon his graduation from high school and college and, Nick suspected, checks on the occasions when his mother had navigated them into particularly dire straits. Or as the celebrated icon of international business, the subject of a thousand newspaper articles, magazine profiles, and television interviews. The most recognized face of Switzerland’s banking establishment.

Kaiser solved Nick’s dilemma in an instant. Wrapping his right arm around his shoulders, he brought him close to his chest for a sturdy bear hug. He whispered something in his ear about the time that had passed and how he resembled his father and finally let him go, but not before kissing him smartly on the cheek.

“At your father’s funeral, you told me that one day you would come back and take his place. Do you remember?”

“No, I don’t,” Nick said, embarrassed. He caught Sylvia Schon gazing at him, and for a second he had the feeling she was sizing him up not as a trainee but as an opponent.

“Of course not,” said Kaiser. “What were you? Ten, eleven. Just a boy. But I remembered. I always remembered. And now here you are.”

Nick grasped the Chairman’s outstretched hand. It was a vise. “Thank you very much for finding room for me. I realize it was short notice.”

“Nonsense. Once I make an offer, it stands. I’m glad we could lure you away from our American colleagues.” Kaiser released his hand. “Dr. Schon putting you through her paces? We saw on your application that you speak our dialect. Made me feel better about the small push I gave on your behalf. Sprechen sie gerne Schweitzer-Deutsch?”

“Naturlich,” Nick answered. “Leider han-i fascht kai Moglichkeit dazu, weisch?” The language felt heavy on his tongue. Nothing like the ease with which it flowed from his mouth in the dozens of silent rehearsals he’d conducted for this moment. He saw a cloud darken Kaiser’s animated features, then looked to Dr. Schon and saw the edges of her mouth turned up in a faint smile. What the hell had he said?

Kaiser switched back to English. “Give it a few weeks and it will come back to you. Ott told me that you did some research about the bank. He was impressed with it.”

“My thesis,” Nick explained, relieved to be back on solid footing. “A paper on the growing role of Swiss banks in international equity offerings.”

“Is that right? Remember that first and foremost we are a Swiss bank. We’ve served our community and our country for over a hundred twenty-five years. Before there was a unified Germany, our headquarters stood on this very spot. Before the Suez Canal was completed, even before a tunnel had been built through the Alps, we were open for business. The world has changed tremendously since that time, and we’re still open for business. Continuity, Nicholas. That’s what we stand for.”

Nick said he understood.

“We’ve assigned you to FKB4. One of our more important departments. You’ll be looking after a great deal of money. I hope Cerruti will be back soon. He worked under your father and was thrilled to learn that you’d be joining us. Until then, do as Sprecher says.” He shook Nick’s hand again, and Nick had the feeling he wouldn’t be seeing him anytime soon.

“You’re on your own here,” said Kaiser. “Your career is what you make it. Work hard and you’ll succeed. And remember what we like to say: “The bank before us all.’ “

Kaiser said good-bye to Sylvia Schon, then marched out of the office.

Nick spun and faced her. “Just one question. What exactly did I say to the Chairman?”

She stood casually, arms crossed over her chest. “Oh, it’s not what you said. It’s how you said it. You addressed the Chairman of the fourth largest bank in Switzerland as if he were your closest drinking buddy. He was a little surprised, that’s all. I don’t think he gets it much. But I’d take his advice and brush up on your language skills. That’s not quite the fluency we expected.”

Nick heard the reprimand lurking within her words and felt ashamed for his shortcomings. It would not happen again.

“You have a great deal of advanced billing to live up to,” she said. “More than a few people are interested in how you do here. As for me, I just hope you’ll stay awhile.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Neumann. It’s my intention that the finance division demonstrate the lowest rate of employee turnover in the bank. No more. Call it my New Year’s resolution.”

Nick met her eye. “I won’t disappoint you. I’ll stick around.”

After having his photograph taken—standard convict’s pose, front and side views—and allowing himself to be fingerprinted, Nick retraced his steps to the elevator. He punched the call button and while he waited for it to arrive glanced around him. Opposite the corridor from which he had just come were a pair of glass doors. “Logistik und Administration” was painted in large block letters at eye level. Nick thought it strange he hadn’t noticed the doors earlier. They seemed oddly familiar. Dismissing the elevator, he crossed the landing and placed his fingers on the panes of milky glass. He had seen these doors before. He had passed through them with his father on that last visit, so long ago. Room 103, he remembered. They had visited Room 103 to visit an old friend of his father’s.

Nick could see himself as a boy, dressed in his gray trousers and blue blazer, hair cut as short as his father’s, marching down the endless hallways. Even then, the little soldier. One vivid memory of that day had stayed with him over the years. Pressed up against a giant picture window, he remembered peering down at a busy street, feeling almost as if he were flying above it. “This is my home,” his father had said, and he remembered finding it incomprehensible that his father had ever lived anyplace but Los Angeles.

Nick checked his watch. He wasn’t expected back at any particular time, and Sprecher seemed easygoing enough. Why not have a look at Room 103? He doubted the same person still worked there, but it was his only point of reference. Decision made, he opened the door and entered a long hallway. Every five steps he passed an office. Stainless steel plates were posted beside each door. A room number was written large across the plates, and below it a four-letter departmental abbreviation followed by several three-letter groupings, no doubt the employees who worked within. In every instance the door was closed. No sounds escaped that might provide a clue as to the work being done inside.

Nick quickened his pace. Ten yards farther on, the corridor ended. The doorways to his left were unmarked. No number; no departmental abbreviation. He tried a handle and found it locked, then hurried on to the end of the hallway. When he saw that the last door on the left sported the number 103, he breathed a sigh of relief. The initials “DZ” were printed under the number. Dokumentation Zentrale. The bank’s archives. There was certainly no grand view from there. Nick considered going in but thought better of it. What business could a trainee possibly have there on this, his first day on the job?

A familiar voice echoed his precise thoughts.

“What the hell are you doing down here?” demanded Peter Sprecher. He was carrying a load of papers under one arm. “I couldn’t have been clearer with my instructions. Follow the yellow brick road, I said. Just like Dorothy.”

Nick felt his body tense involuntarily. Sprecher had, in fact, said just that. “Follow the gold carpeting from the elevator to Dr. Schon’s office and back again.” What reason could Nick give for being at the portal to the bank’s archives? How could he tell Sprecher he’d been chasing a ghost? He took a deep breath, willing himself to relax. “I must have taken a wrong turn. I was beginning to get worried that I wouldn’t find my way back.”

“If I’d known you were such a navigational whiz I would have given you this stack of papers to take for me.” Sprecher motioned with his chin to the bulk of papers under his arm. “Client portfolios bound for the shredder. Keep moving. First office round the corner on the left.”

Nick was relieved by the diversion. “Can I help you with them?” he asked.

“Not now you can’t. Just stay with me and hold on to that handbook. That’s work enough. I’ll personally escort you back upstairs. It doesn’t do to have new trainees wandering about the bowels of the bank.”

Peter Sprecher led Nick back to the second floor and accompanied him to a suite of offices situated far along an interior passageway. “This is your new home,” said Sprecher. “We call it the Hothouse.”

A line of offices divided from one another by glass walls sprang from either side of a spacious central corridor. Executives sat inside several of the offices, engaged on the telephone or with their heads buried in a pile of documents. Nick’s critical eye ran from the beige carpeting to the pabulum furniture to the pewter wallpaper. Despite all the glass inside the building, there wasn’t a single window looking onto the outside world.

Sprecher laid a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “Not the most glamorous of spots, but it does serve its purpose.”

“Which is?”

“Privacy. Silence. Confidentiality. Our holy vows.”

Nick motioned toward the hive of offices. “Which one of these belongs to you?”

“Don’t you really mean which will belong to you? Come on. I’ll show you.”

Sprecher lit a cigarette and walked slowly down the central corridor, speaking to Nick over his shoulder. “Most of our clients in FKB4 have given us discretionary control over their money. It’s ours to play with as we see fit. You’re familiar with the management of discretionary accounts?”

“Clients who prefer their accounts to be managed on a discretionary basis transfer all responsibility and authority regarding the investment of their assets to the bank. The bank invests the money according to a risk profile sheet supplied by the customer that defines the client’s preference for stocks, bonds, and precious metals, as well as any particular investments he doesn’t feel comfortable with.”

“Very good,” said Sprecher, as if feigning impression at a simple trick. “Dare I ask if you worked here before, or did they teach you that at Harvard Bragging School? Let me add that the client’s money is invested according to a strict set of guidelines established by the bank’s investment committee. If you have a hot tip about the next screaming IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, keep it to yourself. Our job is to oversee the proper administration of our clients’ accounts. Though our title is portfolio manager, we haven’t chosen a portfolio on our own in nineteen years. Our biggest choice is whether to invest in Ford versus General Motors, or Daimler-Benz versus BMW. What we do is administer. And we do it better than anyone on God’s green Earth. Got it?”

“One hundred percent,” said Nick, thinking he had just heard the Swiss banker’s official credo.

They passed an empty office and Sprecher said, “That was Mr. Becker’s office. I trust Dr. Schon filled you in on what happened.”

“Was he a close friend of yours?”

“Close enough. He joined us in FKB4 two years ago. Awful going like that. And on Christmas Eve. Anyway, you’ll be taking his office once your training’s through. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” Nick said.

Sprecher arrived at the last office on the left side of the corridor. It was bigger than the others, and Nick could see that a second desk had been moved into it. Sprecher strolled through the open door and sat down behind the larger of the two desks. “Welcome to my castle. Twelve years in grade and this is it. Take a seat. That’s your place—until you learn the ropes.”

The phone rang and Sprecher answered immediately, giving his family name, as was customary. “Sprecher speaking.” After a moment, his eyes latched on to Nick. He lowered the phone, covering the receiver with his palm. “Be a good chap and run get me a cup of coffee, would you. Back there.” He waved sloppily down the open corridor. “If you can’t find it, ask somebody. Anyone will be happy to help you. Thanks.”

Nick took his cue and stepped out of the office. Not exactly what he’d quit his job and moved four thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean to do, but what the hell? Every job demanded that dues be paid. If fetching coffee was all this one entailed, he’d be a lucky man. Halfway down the hallway, he realized that he’d forgotten to ask how Sprecher wanted it. Ever the dutiful adjutant, he hustled back the short distance and tucked his head into his superior’s office.

Sprecher was sitting with his head cradled in his hand, eyes staring at the floor. “I told you, George, it will take fifty thousand more to bring me over to your side of the fence. I’m not leaving for a nickel less. Call it a risk premium. You fellows are new at this sort of thing. I’m a bargain at that price.”

Nick knocked on the glass wall, and Sprecher’s head shot up abruptly. “What is it?”

“How do you want your coffee? Black? With sugar?”

Sprecher held the phone away from his ear, and Nick knew he was trying to figure out how much he had overheard. “George, I’ll call you later. Have to run.” He hung up the phone, then pointed to the chair in front of his desk. “Sit.”

Nick did as he was told.

Sprecher drummed his fingers on the table for several seconds. “Are you one of those blokes always turning up where he doesn’t belong? First I find you wandering about on the first floor, hanging around in front of DZ like a lost puppy. Now you come back here and stick your nose into my affairs.”

“I didn’t hear a thing.”

“You heard plenty and I know it.” Sprecher rubbed a hand along the back of his neck and exhaled wearily. “Thing is this, old boy, we’re going to have to work together for the next little while. I trust you. You trust me. Understand the game? No room for tattling on each other. We’re all grown-ups here.”

“I understand,” said Nick. “Look, I apologize for butting my head into your private conversation. You don’t have to worry that I picked up something I shouldn’t have. I didn’t. So please, put it out of your mind. Okay?”

Sprecher smiled easily. “And even if you did, you didn’t, right, mate?”

Nick refused the offer of familiarity, guarding a serious tone. “Exactly.”

Sprecher pushed back his head and laughed. “You’re not bad for a Yank. Not bad at all. Now get the hell out of here and bring me my coffee. Black, two sugars.”