Limitless

Kevin Doyle was around forty, forty-two, and fairly trim himself. He was wearing a charcoal suit and a red silk tie. I couldn’t remember much of what I’d told him at Herb and Jilly’s, or afterwards in that diner on Amsterdam Avenue, but one thing I did remember clearly was that I’d done most of the talking, and Kevin – apart from trying to turn me on to some stock tips – had hung on my every word. It’d been that thing again, that wanting-to-impress-me, wanting-to-be-my-best-friend thing that I’d had with Paul Baxter and Artie Meltzer. I tried to analyse what this was, and could only conclude that maybe a combination of my being enthusiastic and non-judgemental – noncompetitive – might have struck some kind of a chord in people, especially in people who were stressed out and on their guard all the time. At any rate, these days I had the talking thing a bit more under control, so I decided to let Kevin take the lead. I asked him about Van Loon and Associates.

‘We’re a small investment bank,’ he began, ‘about two hundred and fifty employees. We do venture capital, fund management, real estate, that kind of thing. We’ve brokered some fairly big entertainment deals recently. We did the MCL-Parnassus purchase of Cableplex last year, and Carl Van Loon himself is currently in talks about something else to Hank Atwood, the Chairman of MCL.’ He paused, and then added, as though telling me he’d just been picked for the soccer team, ‘I’m a managing director.’

But when he elaborated on this a bit, explaining that he was one of seven or eight managing directors in the company who babysat their own deals and then came out with huge commissions, I realized for the first time that Kevin wasn’t just some Wall Street schmoe. From what he was telling me, I quickly reckoned that he probably cleared about two or three million a year.

Now I was impressed.

‘What about Van Loon? Is he …’ I asked, not even having a real question here, obviously succumbing a little to the magnetic pull of celebrity that still surrounded Kevin’s boss.

‘Carl’s all right. He’s mellowed a lot, you know. Over the years. But he still works as hard as ever.’

I nodded, thinking How hard could that be?

‘The firm wouldn’t be what it is today without him.’

This was a man who probably cleared about two or three million a week.

‘Hhn.’

‘So … how have you been?’

‘Me? Fine.’

I didn’t remember much of our previous encounter, but I was pretty sure I’d mentioned my book, and probably without saying that it was part of a cheesy series for a second-rate publisher – so, at least as far as I knew, Kevin thought I was a writer of some kind, a commentator, someone with their finger, so to speak, on the pulse of the Zeitgeist … someone he could have an intelligent, self-congratulatory but non-threatening conversation with, and about stuff like the new economy and megatrends and digitalization.

But I got to the point fairly fast.

‘What do you make of all this electronic day-trading, Kevin?’ He thought for a second. ‘It’s just noise. These guys aren’t speculators, or even investors, they’re gamblers – or else sorry geeks who think they’ve democtratized the markets.’ He made a face. ‘When this bubble pops, let me tell you, there’s going to be a lot of blood spattered on the walls.’

He took a sip from his drink.

I lifted my glass. ‘I’ve been doing it at home on my PC, using a software trading package I bought on Forty-seventh Street. I’m up about a quarter of a million in two days.’

Kevin looked at me in horror for a few seconds, taking in the information. But he was also confused, and obviously didn’t know what to say. Then it registered.

‘A quarter of a million?’

‘Hmm.’

‘In two days? That’s pretty good.’

‘Yeah, I think so. But I find I’m weirdly – how can I put this? – dissatisfied with it. I feel constricted. I need to expand.’

As he tried to come to terms with what I was telling him, Kevin shifted on his stool and maybe even squirmed a little. He was a confident guy, clearly very successful, and it was odd to see him mired in uncertainty like this.

‘Ehm … perhaps …’ he scratched his nose, ‘you could … why don’t you try one of those day-trading firms?’

I asked him what difference that would make.

‘Well, you’re not isolated, you’re in a room with a bunch of other traders and on the principle that no one in an environment like that wants to see anyone else failing, you help each other out, and share information. Most firms also offer high leverage, anywhere between five to ten times your deposit. You get a better feel for the behaviour of the markets, as well,’ – he was getting back into his stride here – ‘because it’s often just a question of being able to gauge the collective mood, and then deciding either to go with it or … I don’t know’ – he shrugged his shoulders – ‘against it.’

I asked him if he could recommend one of these places.