Chapter 7 Chapter Six

Sarah looked at her watch.The time is ten o'clock.The street in front of the bank has become quiet, most people are busy with their morning work, but there is still a tense and busy atmosphere on the street.Threadneedle Street, Princes Street, Cornhill Street, William Work Street, Queen Victoria Street and Portray Road all meet at the bank, making it the heart of the City both functionally and geographically.Sarah walked these crowded, breezy streets with a sense of exhilaration.She always seemed to pick up the pace and pay more attention to everything around her.At this moment, she has an unprecedented feeling that she has become the center of something.Emotions that had perhaps been largely based on fantasy in the past were now based on fact: she had been approached by leading figures in the City, and she was now working for the Governor of the Bank of England.In fact, this matter is invisible to others.For Sara, it didn't really matter.She had met the President, had an agreement with him, and that was the real thing to her.

She turned from Threadneedle Street into Old Broad Street and walked a few hundred yards to Finlays Bank.She showed her pass to the security guards, walked through the gate, and took a mirrored elevator up to the trading floor.She swiped her pass in the automatic security monitor, and the door clicked open, revealing a large, overcrowded, free-floor room that at first glance looked like a high-profile event. Cheap auction of technical waste and miscellaneous items. First she heard the uproar, then she saw chaos.Three hundred traders, salesmen, and assistants sat crowded together like hens in a shelf-style coop.

They clustered on both sides of the maze-like desks, and those desks covered the entire hall like a network.Some people will swing around, and then, as if being shocked by electricity, they will reach for the phone receiver quickly, stand up suddenly, yell and gesture like crazy, and calm down after a few seconds.Sarah walked into the utter chaos.Signs were scant: a flag here, a pornographic calendar there, nothing more personal, nothing comforting, no flowers, no floppy armchairs or fancy rugs.Computer monitors stacked high on shelves compete for space with coffee mugs, phones and bond yield calculators sitting on the tiniest countertops.Piles of documents and bond prospectuses stacked precariously at thigh height.The floor of the lobby has been raised to accommodate the miles of cables that feed the hundreds of computer terminals.The ceiling has been lowered to accommodate the high-efficiency air-conditioning system that cools the numerous machines and hot-headed traders.People sit elbow to elbow in that claustrophobic space between each other.

Sarah walked forward cautiously amidst the boisterous greetings.Hi, is there any big event tonight, Sarah?Sara's attire was prepared for meeting the president, and it was more fashionable than the usual attire in the trading floor.She couldn't help laughing.These traders knew everything about what was going on around them, and this time they were only off by a few hours.They are a group of observers who are very sensitive to fashion, and can read paragraphs of stories from the style of a skirt or the height of the hem of the skirt from the ground. Sarah guards her private life cherishably, which can only fuel speculation.Occasionally she made up some anecdote to keep these traders amused, but, being sharp judges of human nature, they seldom believed her diversionary nonsense.She had an air of invisibility, and though the traders found it impossible to understand her, they never gave up trying.

Behind a burst of laughter, Sara sits down, turns on the monitor, and tunes in to a vast electronic universe in which stories are told in digital motion.After the machine whirred and started, it immediately made a nervous rattling sound.The flickering green light of the screens cast sickly shadows on the faces that had paled from the lack of sunlight.Sarah read a message bulletin that scrolled from the bottom of the screen on the Bloomberg monitor: Old news.Nothing major happened. Two thirty, David.Reed called out to Sarah, who was sitting two feet away. Sarah.Jason.The headhunter's phone number.One line.The traders turned their heads, laughed, and then fell silent again, looking her way, trying to hear what was going on.

Oh, you people, get down to business.Sarah said angrily.She connected to Line 1: Hello? Sarah, this is Hugh.Banksy. Hello, Hugh.Sarah laughed. Traders are familiar with the people at the headhunters and the aliases they use to keep them secret.Debunking their backgrounds seems to be a never-ending game for traders.Almost every week Sarah gets a call from a recruiter trying to lure her away from Finlays, and the traders make a big joke about it every time.So this time they were listening, but casually.They feel like they've heard it all before.Sarah turned her attention back to Hugh.Banksy.

stop.Banksy is the founder of Talent Placement Unlimited, arguably the City's most prestigious talent acquisition firm.She is six feet tall, fair-skinned, blond and blue-eyed, exuding confidence and charisma.They had met three years ago, when she had first tried to lure Sara out of Finlays.The two hit it off immediately and spoke highly of each other in terms of personality and business. Listen, Sarah.I know you don't want to move work, but hear me out.Before Sara could speak, Hugh preempted her by saying that there was no point in beating you up or calling you over for an introduction, so I will be informal.Intercontinental Bank foreign exchange proprietary trading.High salary recruitment.They are the highest paying bank in the City, and you know that.You can set the price yourself.It's time to change doors, Sarah.After four years at Finlays Bank, you're starting to get rusty.

Sara interjected, laughing: Well, Hugh.I don't need to preach.But tell me a little more. Well, that's what's really happening.The only disadvantage I see is the head of that department. Oh, do you mean my future boss? Yes, if you will.His name is Dante.Scarpirato, an interesting character, Sara.I was terrified when I saw him. Sarah heard voices in the background and thought it was the secretary walking in with a stack of papers.Sorry, Sarah.I have to go now, Scarpirato is free tomorrow morning at seven.Can you make it on time? Sarah smiled expectantly that I would be there on time.

Sarah got home at six o'clock.She bolted the door behind her, went into the bedroom, undressed, and put on an old terrycloth dressing gown, tied loosely at the waist with a belt.Facing the bathroom mirror, she carefully removed her contact lenses, wiped a pair of smudged glasses with her dressing gown, and put them back on.She went barefoot into the living room, poured half a glass of whiskey, filled the glass to the brim with water, and stretched out on the couch.The phone is next to her, on a carved coffee table made in Morocco that she bought a few years ago in the western Moroccan city of Marrakech.She turned on the dictaphone and turned off the volume switch so that there were no distractions, no distracting speech.

The heavy briefcase was on the floor next to the sofa.Sarah unlocked it and took out the document bag related to Intercontinental Bank.The document bag was two inches thick and contained clips of newspaper and magazine articles, two annual reports for 1991 and 1992, and internal reports from the Bank of England. Sarah flipped through the two annual reports.As expected, the annual report didn't reveal anything she didn't know.Intercontinental Bank is an investment bank headquartered in the United States with ten branches in the world's major financial centers.It has the usual lines of business for multinational banks: corporate finance, fund management, private clients.All of its activities are profitable and respected, but Intercontinental Bank is best known for its trading business.

Intercontinental Bank is one of the largest financial asset dealers in the world.Engage in businesses such as equities, bonds, currencies, and a series of unimaginable financial derivatives, swaps, options, etc.The company employs 4,000 people worldwide, 700 of them in London.Sarah threw the annual report on the floor.She was most interested in the Bank of England's internal reports, which contained information that would never appear in public documents. The numbers in this report do make Intercontinental look suspicious.In 1992, Intercontinental Bank's net profit was 300 million pounds.The foreign exchange self-operated department is based on Dante.Led by Scarpirato, plus three traders, the operation began with a baseline of £28 million and a profit of £45 million.That's an astonishingly high return. Sarah, who was used to the monopoly funds of the City of Finance, was deeply surprised by this.Finlays Bank employs five people to engage in proprietary trading, and its initial fund base is 15 million pounds. In 1992, it made a net profit of 18 million pounds, which is already amazing. Another interesting thing is that Intercontinental Bank's proprietary trading profits are directly related to Dante.Scarpirato related.In 1991, the year before he went, they made nine million pounds.In 1992, after Scarpirato left, the profit for that year rose to 45 million pounds.Barrington was right.Scarpirato was either a genius or a criminal. At nine o'clock, Sarah finished reading all the materials.She stood up stiffly from the sofa, collected the documents scattered on the floor, put them into plastic bags and locked them in drawers.Then she wandered over to the kitchen and took a good look at the refrigerator.It was just her and Eddie and Alex's leftovers.She couldn't help recalling the past.They were still together three days ago.She felt a pang of emptiness. She took a deep breath, calmed down, and took the tomatoes, onions, and garlic from the refrigerator.She chopped up onions and garlic with a razor-sharp kitchen knife while figuring out how to use the seasonings and spices that lined up two feet long above her head.Half an hour later, she sat down in front of the TV, holding a plate full of pasta with a thick layer of tomato sauce. As a child, she learned to cook.Everything she made tasted better than what her aunt Ezra did, because her aunt didn't cook much, though she did it with a little variety.Thinking of this, she couldn't help laughing.Ezra is currently teaching at an American university, lives on campus, and has others cook for her.Maybe now there is some flesh growing on her lotus-like body.If only she remembered to eat. Sarah shook her head, as if trying to get rid of the memories.She turned on the TV and was catching up with Nicholas.Witcher said goodbye to everyone.She switched to international television and waited for the "Ten O'Clock News" to hear the booming Trevor.What's the news for Macdonald.There is no news.She called Intercontinental Bank's office in Tokyo to check market conditions.There was no news there either.They promised her when they hung up that they would call her if anything happened. Sara yawned wide open and headed for the bathroom.Newspaper clippings about Intercontinental Bank left some ink marks on her hands.She scrubbed it off vigorously with soap, splashed cold water on her face, and applied a layer of the latest wonder cream.She threw the dressing gown on the bedroom floor, dialed the alarm clock, and got under the covers.She drifted off to sleep with thoughts of Alex and Eddie. After waking up at six in the morning, she rummaged through the closet for a while, and then got serious about dressing up.This is the third time in a row.She put on a sober suit of navy blue linen with gold buttons and a handsome white blouse.Perfect job interview attire, but by the time it was nearly seven o'clock that night, the clothes were wrinkled from a stressful day at work. Intercontinental Bank's offices are located in Lower Thames Street, in a modern building.The building stands proudly by the river, its windows gleaming maliciously.The interior of the building is completely modern.A huge atrium is located in the center of the building.Except for a reception desk, two sofas and a collection of angular metal sculptures, the entire atrium is empty.The metal sculpture seemed to stare wide at her as she approached.A cold receptionist told her to go up to the fourth floor. Dante.Scarpirato, in a black uniform, sat in a dimly lit office on a deserted trading floor.He stood up when he saw her coming forward.He stood upright, with his legs firmly planted, like a boss.He was slender-boned, and she thought he weighed well for his height.He was perfectly dressed, with white cuffs peeking out from under the sleeves of his coat, and black leather shoes that were polished to a shine.He showed none of the signs of fatigue or disheveledness that characterizes most traders after twelve hours in the office.Everything about him seemed very, very proper, and everything he did was measured.He came over to her and shook her hand.She noticed that they were about the same height, with eyes at eye level. please sit down. Sarah sat down across from him.He looked at her, without a smile on his face, elusive.After an embarrassing silence, he asked: So why do you want to work for Intercontinental Bank?He turned his head, facing the row of flashing market indicators, and Sarah spoke to his silhouette.From time to time, he would type a command and bring up another page on the screen, as if he had forgotten Sarah's existence, and would ask another question if necessary, but it was just going through the motions. Sarah knew his trick: Feign indifference, put the other person in the position of supplicant, and make them work hard to get your attention.It's a form of self-expression that's predictable but also tedious.She thought she deserved more of his attention, but had to admit that he was playing the game pretty well, and found herself wishing, unconsciously, that he would turn and face her.After five minutes of this reception, she began to feel uneasy.Ten minutes later, she was annoyed. Excuse me for asking, are you interviewing me or the machine? Scarpirato turned sharply and looked directly at her for the first time. How important is money to you?His question threw Sarah off her feet.First, because he had succeeded in thwarting her sharpness, and second, because he had asked a question that pervaded City life but had never been asked directly. Only naive people come to work in the City for reasons other than money.What challenges, excitements, experiences, etc., that each person paints their primary motivation with, is true, but secondary.Merkelism is a taboo.It is almost obnoxious to ask this question. Sarah was in no hurry.She studied Scarpirato's face carefully before answering.It wasn't a handsome face by usual standards, but there was something attractive about it.His skin was tanned and his face was stubbled.The forehead is high and slightly hemispherical, and a head of straight black hair has begun to fall out.The lips looked almost blue in the gray light.The nose was long and straight, but it was the eyes that caught the eye. There is no life in this body sitting unnaturally in front of the workbench, Dante.Scarpirato's entire strength was concentrated in the eyes, and you would think that he would be as dead as long as he closed them.The eyes were large and round, and the brown pupils were piercing.The pupils are large, the cornea almost fills the eye, and the white of the eye forms a narrow bright circle.It was a pair of contemptuous eyes that projected weariness and boredom, but suddenly, surprisingly, lit up with a burst of mania, then faded away so quickly that Sara wondered if she saw at all. It's shiny.She broke off her contemplation abruptly to concentrate on answering the question.Now that the taboo has been broken, there is no point in evasiveness. Money is the primary motivation. A slight smile appeared on his lips.It was the only reaction he had to her. well said.That's the only reason for doing this job. No, not really, Sarah thought to herself. Scarpirato gets up from his seat, I have to go. Sarah checked her watch.Seven thirty.It was the shortest job interview she had ever had. Scarpirato walks her to the elevator.He walked shoulder to shoulder with her, hips, shoulders, and head level.When he raised his hand to press the elevator button, she saw the wrist protruding from his cuff.The wrist looked thin and tender, like a woman's wrist, except that there was a thick layer of black hair growing on it.His two hands have clear veins, and the fingers are thin and long.The elevator has arrived.Sarah took the elevator down the stairs alone