Monte Carlo and Royalty

It was something said by the gambler who had removed $5 million from our fund which had struck a chord. He had wanted the cash to buy a fancy apartment in Monaco.

Ah Monaco – that bastion of capitalism, wealth, fancy cars, mega-yachts and countless Russian girls, sorry hookers, who dressed as if they were rich but had to work the clubs and hotels in order to fund their high-maintenance lifestyle.

It was my strategy to get out there as soon as my stint in New York finished, although as I was now two years over my planned stay, Daddy might have forgotten that I’d said I would only do NY if the next ‘posting’ was to Monaco.

I love Monaco. It drips wealth. Even the cops are dressed in clothes which make them look like male models. The sidewalks, sorry pavements, are remarkably clean given the number of lap dogs which wander about crapping everywhere. It’s the ultimate big brother society – CCTV cameras everywhere, monitoring everything from the said dogs to people gathering in cafés and on street corners, not that there was much of that in the Principality.

The problem was that even a one bedroom apartment was over $1 million and anything resembling a duplex needed the GDP of a small nation to be deposited with the realtor. One could rent of course, but what sort of status was that for a guy like me.

As I sat in my Madison Avenue office one morning looking out of the window at nothing more interesting than the back of another office I thought of the harbour view in Monaco which almost doubled the price of an apartment, and if you were lucky enough to have both a harbour and a palace view, man, you were made.

My mind wandered. The Wall Street Journal could wait. I got a coffee and closed my eyes.

I arrived in Nice Airport. I was just out of Cambridge and Daddy had suggested I attend a conference in Monte Carlo. Some sort of financial jolly and all I had to do was make sure that the guys he’d sent from Barclays were actually doing their job.

The weather was fantastic as you would expect in the South of France and as I wandered out to the taxi rank I glanced skywards at the brilliant blue sky – Côte d’Azur – was this for the sky or the sea?

The Mercedes worked its way along the rocky coastline. Had the driver decided to take the longer scenic route to earn more money or was it really the quickest way as he’d said? No worries, Daddy had said to enjoy myself and I intended to.

The driver stopped at the entrance to the Loewes Hotel (pictured) where the conference was being held and I stepped out into the warm sunshine. It immediately struck me that this was the iconic Loewes Hotel around which the Grand Prix drivers slowed down before hurtling through the tunnel which ran under the full length of the building. It was truly magnificent perched as it was above the lapping waves of the Med.

I checked in and changed into linen trousers and a Lacoste polo shirt – when in France and all that.

I had a quick lunch and then headed off to the exhibition area where Barclays had a stand. I found it quickly. It was in a prime spot, just inside the main entrance doors and not far from the delegate’s coffee area. Someone had done their homework.

Not wanting to spy on the guys who manned the stand, I introduced myself to the three bankers, watched them work the delegates for ten minutes and then suggested we all got together later that night for a meal and a few drinks.

As I was leaving the Barclays’ area I noticed a woman watching me. She was on the Honeybull stand. Quite old but extremely well dressed and well preserved by the looks of it. She smiled and I smiled back before I wandered off to have a look at the casino which was situated on the ground floor of the hotel.

Later that evening, the ‘Barclays crowd’ headed off into the hills behind Monaco for an authentic Italian meal which, I have to say, was a total disappointment – I’d had lasagnes in London which were better!

The next morning I was back on the stand trying to understand the financial products we were selling when the lady from the previous day wandered over and without any introductions suggested we go for a coffee. I was intrigued and agreed. She suggested the ‘Club Room’ which she had access to, saying it would be quieter.

I followed her into the lift and along the corridor of the 7^th floor to the Club Room where she poured herself a coffee and asked how I liked mine. It was only now she was sitting no more than two feet away that I could study her more closely. Definitely in her 40s she was slightly built but had good boobs from what I could see. She had laughing eyes and a very sexy mouth. Her name was Christina, she was Austrian but lived in Paris and because her husband had died a few years ago, she’d had to take a job with Honeybull as a sort of ‘ambassadress’ as she called it. Her job was to identify the high net worth (or rich) individuals and get them onto the Honeybull stand. And from what I could see, she was very good at it.

We chatted for about 30 minutes and then she suggested we have dinner later on – at her hotel, The Mirabeau.

That afternoon as I soaked in the bath, I wondered what was going on. Ok I’d had a ball at Cambridge but it still felt strange being the pursued rather than the pursuer - if that’s really what was happening.

I arrived in the reception of the Mirabeau, a short walk from the Loewes and asked for the restaurant. Once

there, I didn’t need to ask for my fellow diner, not that I knew her surname in any case, as I could see her sitting at a corner table.

I wandered over. She remained seated as I reached for her hand to shake it and was quite taken aback to find her offering the back of her hand for me to kiss which I did. I remember thinking the perfume she wore was exquisite.

As soon as I sat down a waiter appeared with two menus. Christina ordered a half bottle of white wine, put her menu down and said, ‘Nigel – I’d suggest you have a light meal.’ ‘Why’, I responded. ‘Because I want you to make love to me all night and you won’t be able to do that on a full stomach’. I nearly spat out my wine but as she’d only ordered half a bottle I thought better of it. 

It was extremely difficult to have a conversation after her opening gambit. I studied her face and she became more and more attractive as the minutes passed. She had a Caesar Salad whilst I took her advice and had a salmon pasta dish.

As soon as we’d finished, she got up to leave and I followed her like a partially trained puppy.

Her suite was on the 5^th floor, and once inside, it was like a replay of Mrs Robinson in the film of the same name when she lit a cigarette, got herself a drink and sat on the edge of the bed. I desperately tried to remember what Dustin Hoffman had done – had he shagged her? How cool did he play it? Did he just dispense with the formalities and rip her clothes off?

It was all taken out of my hands when she slowly started to undress whilst taking sips of her vodka tonic. Once down to her knickers and bra (and she did have great boobs) she sat there, looked at me and said, ‘well then – are you going to join me?’

I stripped off as coolly as I could but still made a fool of myself when my foot got caught in the bottom of my trousers and I nearly fell over. I left my boxer shorts on and climbed under the sheets. The bedside lamp was switched off but there was still enough light coming in from the street lamps outside for me to see her lying there.

I kissed her. She moaned and took my boxers off with her feet. I removed her bra and kissed her delicious breasts. She removed her pants and the rest, they say, is history.

At 7am, I did what they do in the movies. I quietly dressed and left before Christina woke.

I returned to my room in the Loewes, had a long shower, had breakfast in my room and then walked around the streets beside the hotel thinking about the night just gone. It was incredible. What an amazing lover she was. And I still didn’t know her surname!

At 9am sharp, I was on the Barclays stand eagerly awaiting Christina to appear opposite, but by 11am there was still no sign of her. At the coffee break, I asked one of the other people on her stand where she was and was shocked to be told that she’d finished at the exhibition – she wouldn’t be returning. I’d been a one-night stand! 

‘Put it down to experience Nigel’, I told myself. ‘After all you’ve done it many times yourself.’

When I returned to my room later that afternoon, there was an envelope behind my door. I opened it and my heart skipped a beat as I read, ‘Dearest Nigel – Please come to Paris this weekend.’ It was signed Christina Schiltz and gave a Paris address in Neuilly.

I went straight down to the travel office and changed my Friday night BA flight and then returned to the exhibition although my mind definitely wasn’t on financial services for the rest of the day. I also had the distraction of having to change hotels as the Loewes had originally only booked me in for two nights. I’d forgotten this but the fact that I was now moving to the ultra-swish Hotel de Paris was quite a consolation as was the fact that that night I could get into the famous casino located alongside and reserved for high-rollers and guests of the hotel.

The following 24 hours were a blur as I desperately looked forward to seeing, and screwing Christina again. She was the oldest woman I’d ever had, by quite a few years but there was something about her. A certain sophistication. A hidden sexiness. And pure lust when she was beneath the sheets!

Friday evening arrived and I headed back to Nice airport. I dismissed the thought of taking the helicopter service from Monaco despite the fact that it would only take 6 minutes and would cost the same as a taxi – it just wouldn’t look good on expenses. Neither would a night at The Hotel de Paris but I had a good excuse for that.

Once at Orly, I gave the taxi driver the address and about 40 minutes later I was alongside the River Seine and quite clearly in Neuilly sur Seine as the signs confirmed. The driver stopped at a simple block of townhouses overlooking the river and strained to see the numbers. ‘Monsieur – Vingt et Un’, which I reckoned was him telling me I’d arrived.

As I paid the fare, the door of number 21 opened and there in a loose housecoat stood Christina, looking absolutely radiant.

She kissed me and led me upstairs to the lounge where I deposited my bag and grabbed her in my arms. We kissed and as we did so, she manoeuvred backwards until she fell on the bed.

For the next two hours we rediscovered every part of each other’s bodies. She may have been in her forties but she had the stamina of a 21 year old and did things none of my previous conquests had even come near to doing. She was absolutely amazing.

At a quarter to eight, she rolled out of bed and suggested we have a shower together. She wanted to go to a particular restaurant and it tended to get busy on Friday nights.

This was most definitely a first for me – washing and being washed with soap going absolutely everywhere!

I dressed and wandered around her apartment whilst she put her make up on. On the wall in her small hall was a painting which looked remarkably familiar. I looked at the signature and it said ‘Picasso’. ‘Wow’ I thought. I looked at the painting more closely this time and finally came to the conclusion that it was Christina’s face I was looking at.

‘Ah – you’ve found my painting’, Christina said as she wrapped her arms around me.

‘Is that ....’. ‘Yes – Picasso painted me – he was a friend’, she said.

I was still reeling at this when we arrived arm in arm at the restaurant. I had no qualms about linking arms with a woman who was old enough to be my mother. With each passing hour, she became more and more gorgeous.

At the restaurant, a long queue snaked along the railings outside and around the corner. It was obviously a popular place. ‘Have you booked?’ I asked Christina. ‘No’ she said, ‘no need’. And with that she guided me to the front of the queue where she was greeted by the receptionist. The maitre d’ arrived and kissed Christina on both cheeks – ‘your table is waiting Countess’, he said.

When we sat down and I’d waited for the wine to arrive and I’d taken a gulp, I asked what was going on. ‘I’m an Austrian Countess – Countess Christina von Schiltz and I’ve got this PR type job at Honeybull. Despite the title, I need money to pay the bills but I do have some nice friends – last week Henry Kissinger was sitting where you are now.’

Later that night as I made love to royalty - again, I thought that life was indeed strange.     

Prague and the $4 Million Chocolate Cake

I wasn’t used to losing deals. After all if one investor decided, for whatever reason not to invest, and it usually wasn’t anything to do with the returns we made, we simply called up another sucker and the money flowed in.

We couldn’t do too much business of course as we tried to stay below the regulatory radar and usually the new business we sought was simply to replace money which had been taken out by investors who had made their cash and then made a dash.

Occasionally, just occasionally though, one of our bigger investors would decide that he’d made enough and then there’d be a scramble to replace his dough. After all, my bonus from Daddy was based on both the size of the funds under investment and the returns we made and I use the word ‘we’ advisedly. We were a team and that meant everybody from the receptionist through the admin staff and on to the fund managers and the guys in the IT department. I had managed to get a payment scheme which most of the staff could only dream about but it was all based on team working, serving the client and keeping quiet, not necessarily in that order!

It was one such cash withdrawal which caused me a bit of a problem. The guy, who shall remain nameless but who was a professional gambler and who when he made a bundle, gave it to us rather than giving it back to the Las Vegas casinos, decided he needed a fancy new apartment in Monaco and withdrew $5 million ! Fucking $5 million, and he only gave us one month’s notice. I took a mental note to call Tanya and tell her that her contracts sucked – she needed to tighten up the withdrawal notice clauses – how the fuck was I going to get another $5 million in a month?

And then all my lucky stars fell from the sky at once.

Once a month I’d take the staff out for a non-alcoholic evening. On this particular occasion, we’d taken some limos across to Brooklyn to the River Café just under the bridge. We had a great meal (no wine – just water) and finished off by going next door to the Brooklyn Bridge Ice Cream Factory where the flavours are absolutely amazing.

Standing on the pier waiting for the ferry back to Manhatten I made the unforgiveable mistake of mentioning to Steve, my Head of IT that we needed to find some more funds and Steve, equally unforgiveable on his part, said we shouldn’t have too much trouble as we were now guaranteeing 10% and managing 22%.

Unknown to us, this conversation was overheard by another guy who was waiting for the ferry. Luckily, one of our secretaries, was also indiscreet enough to give him the name of our company when asked and the very next day, I got a call from ‘somebody’ who wanted to invest ‘up to $10 million’!

It turned out that the guy headed up an Eastern European investment syndicate and after a couple of meetings where we sussed each other out, I was invited to take a team out to Prague to meet the other investors and hopefully conclude the deal.

I’d never been to Prague so I was looking forward to a few days out of a hot and steamy NY and decided to take Steve with me as I knew it was his birthday when we’d be there. He was a terrific guy and despite the fact that he knew little about funds or investments when he joined us, had grasped the fundamentals of the business and had developed computer systems which had made us millions.  I also asked one of the newer secretaries, Sanita, to join us as I definitely needed somebody to do some admin and take notes when we were with the client – sorry potential client. One of Sanita’s first tasks was to find a nice restaurant where we could hold the meeting with the client – no expense spared was the brief.

We arrived at the hotel early afternoon and I suggested a quick rest as we’d been travelling, albeit first class on American, for some 13 hours. Despite the fact that Sanita was a ‘babe’, as I’d learned to call them, I was determined not to ruin this trip by letting my dick rule my head, so it was single rooms for all of us – with no discreet inter-connecting doors.  

We met up at the hotel bar at 4pm where a nicely chilled bottle of Bollinger was waiting for us. After pouring a glass for Steve and Sanita, I held my glass up and said, ‘Happy Birthday Steve.’ To say he was chuffed was an understatement. He never knew that we knew it was his birthday. It’s these little things which make a relationship work and make your staff loyal.

The meeting with the client, or should I say clients, they were going to be ten in total, was scheduled for 6.30pm and despite Sanita’s protestations that ‘everything would be perfect’, I wanted to check out the restaurant and ensure we had a private area where we could talk in confidence.

A cab across one of the many bridges to the restaurant only took us 10 minutes in the pre rush hour traffic

and I was delighted to find that the Cihelna was located right on the banks of the Vltava River with terrific views of the famous Charles Bridge. The table chosen by Sanita was perfect, the menus looked good and I took the precaution of pre-ordering the wine to accompany the meal. I didn’t want any thick Eastern European trying to prove he was a wine buff  by pontificating over the wine list and I definitely didn’t want them ordering wine for me. I’d take their money but I wouldn’t take their wine recommendations.

Just as I was about to suggest we went back to the hotel for a coffee when the maitre d’ arrived with a wine cooler and a bottle of champagne. ‘On the house and for Mr Steve’s birthday’ he said. ‘How did he know’, Steve asked. Sanita and I looked at each other and shrugged. It was only Moet but it would do.

Despite promising myself that we’d behave ourselves alcohol-wise, Steve, Sanita and myself had a further bottle of Moet in addition to the free one and then moved onto coffee before the clients arrived. It was a truly beautiful location. The sun shone and the Vltava sparkled as it flowed past the restaurant’s garden we were sitting in.

The clients arrived at exactly 6.30pm and a motley bunch they were. Very rich apparently but that didn’t stop them looking like a collection of boring accountants. They refused a drink in the garden and wanted to get down to business immediately. At the table, the clients sat at one end with Steve and Sanita sitting beside and across from me. The main client sat to my left with his key investors across from him.  

The maitre d’ suggested we have an aperitif as we perused the menu and whilst Steve, Sanita and myself had Gin and Tonics, the clients all had sparkling water! This was going to be a boring meeting. Boring, but hopefully very lucrative.

Halfway through the main course and with talks stumbling over both the amount and the duration of a much reduced $4 million investment, I started drinking heavily. At one point I said to the main man, ‘do you know I don’t get out of fucking bed for less than $10 million and I’ve had to fly halfway across the world to eat a crap steak and talk about a measly $4 million.’

He took my intended insult remarkably well and turned to talk to his colleagues. Steve ordered another bottle of wine and then lust took over. Both Steve’s eyes and mine became fixed on Sanita’s magnificent breasts. Beautifully framed and held in a pure white, body-hugging t-shirt, they were a feast for the eyes, especially eyes like mine which had not seeen a naked breast for over a month.

‘I’ll give you $100 if you take your t-shirt off’, I said. Sanita never flinched. ‘I’ll give you $200’, Steve countered.

‘I am NOT taking my t-shirt off for any amount of money’, stated Sanita, still taking the whole thing as a joke.   The client however was beginning to lose interest in his own conversations and I noticed he was listening in, I assume hoping Sanita would take the cash and do a flash.

‘OK – let me throw a glass of water over your boobs so that I can see what you look like in a wet t-shirt’, I demanded.

‘Go on Sanita – it’s my birthday – get your boobs out’, shouted Steve forgetting he was sitting right next to her.

By this time, there were the beginnings of dissent from the other end of the table but I was on a roll and had already worked out that the $4 million was going to be more trouble than it was worth.

‘Go on – get them out Sanita’, I repeated, ignoring the maitre d’s requests to quieten down.

Sanita ignored me and had a word with a waiter and shortly afterwards a huge chocolate cake appeared. ‘Happy Birthday Mr Steve’, the waiter said as he set the cake down in front of a rather embarrassed and rather inebriated IT guy.

‘C’mon Steve. If Sanita wont get her boobs out, you get yours out and show her how it’s done’, I said, and without further ado, Steve ripped opened his shirt and sat there bare chested. Much hairier than I imagined Sanita to be but impressive nevertheless.

At this stage, I assume the drink took over and the piece of chocolate cake which had been set in front of me was taken and smeared all over a rather taken aback Steve’s chest. Not only that, I then proceeded to lick it off making sure I spent a rather unfortunate amount of time, making sure his nipples were licked well clean.

And then the silence. An unerring silence. A 100 seater restaurant in total silence with every eye in the place looking at a chocolate smeared chest and chocolate smeared lips and mouth.

The clients looked suitably appalled. There were mutterings between them but nobody moved. And then Steve said in his inimitable way, ‘another bottle of wine boss?’

Needless to say the $4m disappeared as quickly as the next two bottles of wine which Sanita, Steve and I drank. I wasn’t too worried about it – there’d be another rich sucker around the next corner. What I was worried about was what stories Sanita would tell back in the office and would I ever be able to convince her that I was not having a fling with Steve and that her and I were inevitably headed for the sack – and I don’t mean unemployment!   

Burgundy Brogues and an Errant Tongue

Following the problem with Veezacard and the FBI, Paul had finally accepted that it was all a big mistake and that my bit in the shambles with his President had been quite innocent. But who to blame? Me for not having a pen in the bar? The barman for not having one? The girl who took the pen and who put the FBI onto Veezcard? The telephonist who, on hearing it was the FBI, put them directly through to the President’s office without asking any questions? Paul and I discussed it all over a few bottles of fine Claret and then we had moved on.

That had been several weeks before and discussions with Paul and his team had progressed amazingly quickly since then. The President’s insistence on regular progress updates had made sure that the project, still called Trident, moved as quickly as I’d hoped it would and indeed the lawyers were telling both Paul and myself that the paperwork would be concluded within a week – and $100 million would hit my fund!

I’d been down to San Francisco a couple of times for update meetings with Paul and his team and after Steve’s observation about the Veezacard’s team’s sexual preferences (whether it was for each other I wasn’t sure but it was definitely for the male species), I’d watched them more closely at each meeting.

Eventually, any sign of heterosexual pretence was dropped by the Veezacard guys (or should that be gays ?) and in bars and clubs after meetings they became quite open about their sexuality, to the point where Paul started to make overt references to his partner – John.

On one occasion Paul held a cocktail event at his lakeside condo. We were planning to have lunch across the lake at a surf/turf restaurant but he wanted to thank me and my guys for working on the project and had invited us for aperitifs at his home. As we stood on his deck which jutted out over the water he lit a cigarette and realising that I’d left mine at the hotel, I stupidly uttered the most ludicrous phrase – ‘Paul, can I ponce a fag’.

As soon as the words left my mouth, I realised what an absolute faux pas I’d made and could see $100 million disappearing back into the Veezacard vaults. As I stood there aghast at what I’d said, Paul turned with a packet of Lucky Strike, offered them to me and said, ‘Nigel – don’t worry. Us gays are used to people saying the wrong thing. Forget it’. Phew !

I changed the subject to his condo. When had he bought it? Did he ever fish off the deck? Anything to try and recover a ‘normal’ position as regards the conversation.

Paul answered my questions readily and offered to show me around the building which was tall and narrow

in construction. On the ground floor, the kitchen and dining room dominated the space but of course, the large double doors opening out onto the deck and its magnificent location on the lakeside was the defining characteristic. The first floor held a lounge and an office. It was all very ‘bachelorish’ in design and decoration.

And then my second faux pas, although I think I was more justified this time. Paul headed up the second set of stairs saying that the bedrooms were at the top of the house and afforded great views of the lake. I took one or two steps and then decided that I just could not look at a bed where two guys, one of whom was Paul, a rather rotund chap, would roll around doing what they did to each other. I muttered something about just remembering a key part of the project which I needed to discuss with Steve and headed back down the stairs.

As I re-entered the dining area, Steve winked and asked if I’d had a good time. ‘Don’t even go there’, I answered and headed back out onto the deck for another glass of Californian chardonnay and a cigarette.

Two weeks later, Paul and some of his team arrived In London. As with guys of his status working for a huge international company, if they wanted a meeting in London, the meeting was held in London. It was as simple as that. It didn’t matter about the logistics or the inconvenience, and certainly the expense was not even on the radar, if Paul wanted to spend a couple of days swanning about London, then as the client, that was his prerogative. I was happy enough with this, particularly as they didn’t want to be ‘entertained’ whilst in the City but they did suggest a dinner with the key members of the respective teams in attendance.

I suggested Tanya and Carl our legal team, to attend along with Steve and one of the other client relationship guys from the New York office. I had no real idea who Paul would bring but I expected to see some of the guys who we’d met in San Fran plus their lawyers. I got Marion in our London office to book a restaurant in the centre of London as I knew the Veezacard guys were staying somewhere in Soho – how appropriate!

That night, as I rushed to find Le Palais du Jardin in Covent Garden, I cursed Daddy. Just as I was leaving the Mayfair office, he’d asked me to ‘pop in for a chat young man’ and that was that – 30 minutes late before I’d even hit the evening London traffic.

Despite the light rain which usually drives everybody into London’s cabs, I managed to get one quite quickly and was in Covent Garden within 10 minutes. I’d never eaten at Le Palais before but the layout was quite clear – a long bar area leading into a two-tier restaurant. The receptionist heard the word ‘Veezacard’ and headed off through a bustling and absolutely full restaurant and led me up a set of stairs to the higher level where the group I was to join sat at a large round table. I made my excuses for being late and sat down in an empty seat next to Paul.

No sooner had I sat down and asked the waiter to pour me some wine, than another person arrived. Given that he was without his jacket, he’d obviously been to the gent’s toilet and it was also obvious that I’d taken his seat.

He introduced himself as John and sat at the only other empty seat at the table which was between Tanya and Steve. He didn’t look too happy but what the hell. I can’t stand these meetings where everybody lines up in their respective groups – it makes things more interesting when there’s a mix.

Dinner was served and quite sumptuous it was too. The service was impeccable, the food amazing and the restaurant the perfect place to impress clients. I mentally noted that I should congratulate Marion who had booked it.

The wine flowed and as usual in these situations, I probably had more than I should but as it was Friday night and I had nothing arranged for Saturday, I thought what the hell.

And then I spotted it. A gift wrapped package in the middle of the table, obviously a book of some sort. I assumed, rather too quickly as it turned out, that it was one of those little gifts fancy restaurants sometimes leave for their diners – in this case it was quite obviously a book about the restaurant. As the host, I felt it was my duty to open it which I did and was rather surprised to find a book on ‘Love Poems’. Opening the cover I just read out what was printed inside without even thinking. ‘To John – with all my love, Paul’.

As I uttered the final syllable, it seemed like the whole restaurant went silent but of course, it was just my table. I didn’t know where to look and neither did the members of my team. I could feel another ‘death’ moment rising within my body and waited for the inevitable tirade from the client but was amazed when John came round the table, took the book from me, kissed Paul on the cheek and then sat back down in his place.

Paul, for his part, stunned me by saying that it had been nice of me to ‘present’ John with his gift and put his arm around me in a really friendly gesture – a bit too friendly for my taste though!

‘How many lives do you have Nigel?’, I asked myself.

Dinner continued and everybody seemed to be partaking rather too much of the delicious Montagny Premier Cru we were drinking but it was all very jolly. I asked Paul what he had done that day and before he could answer, John interjected that they’d been shopping and Paul had bought the ‘most atrocious burgundy brogue shoes’. At that, and again without thinking, I said that I liked burgundy brogues and indeed, I was wearing a pair.

John literally sprinted around the table, pushed my chair back, grabbed my leg and held my foot up to show everybody my burgundy brogues. This time, it wasn’t just our table which went silent. This time the whole of the upper tier of Le Palais went silent as they looked at me precariously perched on two legs of my chair whilst this stubble-bearded, thin guy held my leg aloft.

After I was restored to a normal sitting position, our table returned to normal but lively conversation with John and Paul becoming more animated by the minute.

Desserts, coffees and liqueurs were taken and the time came for me to pick up the bill but not before the cab, which had been ordered for Paul and John, was announced as sitting outside the restaurant. I got up to shake the hands of my clients but whilst Paul warmly responded with a handshake, John grabbed me by the shoulders and started to kiss me – full on the lips. At first I thought it was all a joke, albeit a rather unfortunate one, but once John’s tongue started to enter my mouth I realised it wasn’t. I was appalled and all I could think of was self preservation. I didn’t knee him in the balls as my natural instincts told me to, I just clenched my teeth and hoped it would all end as quickly as possible.

And as all this was happening, all I could think of as his stubbly face rubbed into mine, was that I now knew how women felt when their man had not shaved!

A Night Back In London

Daddy had wanted a ‘strategic’ review so I had to jet over to London with Steve my IT guy. Steve wasn’t necessary for the review but I couldn’t imagine a night in London without him as he knew all the best bars, which was impressive considering he was a northern guy.

As soon as we landed I phoned Tanya, our London lawyer, and suggested a night out in the City. I’d missed the ‘champagne bars’ and the understated way the London bankers celebrated finishing a hard day at the office – they may have made or lost millions but you never knew – they all had a good time. No boasting or over-the top gestures – just discreet ordering of bottles of Bolli.

Steve and I managed to reach the City about 6.30pm, which was perfect timing and met Tanya and her para-legal guy, Carl, at a bar not far from St Paul’s. A few gin and tonics (and cigarettes), a quick catch-up on what was happening in London and we were ready to hit the City bars where the champagne would be flowing.

I’d met Carl quite a few times and was very impressed. Para-legals, despite the name, do not combine parachuting with legal work but work in legal departments during their gap-year from university (maybe the name comes from the fact that they ‘parachute’ into legal departments on a short term basis) but I could already see that Carl would be a great addition to any legal department. He was quiet but determined. He was already aware of negotiating positions and the little scams we used to outflank clients and wasn’t too worried about some of the ‘dodgier’ tactics we used to gain the upper hand. He was a good guy.

Once we hit the Bow Wine Vaults and the Bolli was ordered, we settled down to discussing what was next for Daddy. Was he doing anything I should know about? Was he doing anything illegal? And was he seeing any women I knew?

As Tanya and Steve discussed the unlikely, and boring subject of new IT systems for the legal department, Carl and had a chat about his degree and where he hoped to end up in the City.

During this discussion I happened to mention that I was so jealous that he could wear mainly casual clothes to work whilst I had to settle for formal suits, bespoke shirts and silk ties. Perversely, Carl said he couldn’t wait to afford the sort of clothes I wore and as the alcohol was kicking in we stupidly decided to swap clothes.

Without another word, Carl and started stripping off and despite a full bar, nobody seemed to notice that at one stage both Carl and I stood in our underpants whilst we began to dress in each other’s clothes. A few minutes later, I stood at the bar in Chinos, checked shirt and casual, linen jacket whilst, unfortunately, Carl looked decidedly handsome in my Hugo Boss suit, tailored Pink Bros shirt and silk Hermes tie.

Tanya and Steve looked at the ‘cross-dressing’ escapade with some humour but within seconds the atmosphere changed as a guy almost somersaulted across the bar floor with a decidedly angry, Carl in hot pursuit. As the guy rose from the floor, reeling from whatever had knocked him down in the first place, Carl landed another two ‘knockout’ blows on his chin.

To say that Tanya, Steve and myself were amazed was an understatement. Amazingly, very few people in the bar seemed to notice – they continued to drink their Bolli and chat away as if nothing had happened. The next thing I noticed was Steve helping the rather groggy chap to his feet and taking him to the bar where he propped him up and bought him a drink.

Thinking quite selfishly, in case any blood started flowing and my Boss suit was ruined, I quickly changed clothes with Carl and started on the Bolli again.

A minute or so later, Steve was chasing the guy at the bar and all hell broke loose. The bar quickly emptied this time and the barman headed for the further recesses of his domain whilst Steve threatened to flatten the guy who seemed to be upsetting everybody within arms length.

This time I was the peacemaker and dragged the, by now punch drunk miscreant off to the other end of the bar whilst Steve and Carl regained their composure.

I bought the guy a drink (GT I think) and told him to settle down and stop causing trouble and noticed that Tanya and Carl had decided to leave. I figured it wouldn’t be good for their careers if two City lawyers were arrested for GBH or whatever the police, if they ever turned up, would charge us with.

Then I realised what had caused the problem. The guy I was standing with started throwing peanuts at Steve. This apparently, was what had caused the initial rumpus and despite a good thumping and several pieces of advice, he continued doing it.

Steve was a blur as he ran down the side of the bar and threw the guy against the wood lined wall. He drew his fist back and was just about to flatten the guy when I grabbed it. I told Steve that he should go to the other end of the bar and I would talk to this pain in the ass and try and get him to leave.

It appears the guy was Dutch and was working in London. I tried to get him to drink some water and call a cab which might have proved difficult as the bar was down a pedestrian alley, quite a distance from Cheapside.

I thought I was finally getting through to him when he suddenly decided he wanted another fist in the face and started heading for Steve again, calling him a ‘fat bastard’.

This time it was me who snapped. Where the strength came from I have no idea but I picked ‘Dutchy’ up by his lapels and literally slammed him down horizontally on the bar top. I’d completely lost it. I remember

thinking I’m going to sort this prat out once and for all and grabbed whatever came to hand to hit him with. I knew we were at the food end of the bar and I reckoned there would be some plastic bottles of mayonnaise to hand but what I picked up and started to aim at his head was a glass bottle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. As it came into view, I decided that Extra Virgin Olive Oil was just too good to waste on this piece of Dutch crap so put it down and reached blindly for the next bottle which thankfully was plastic – Tomato Sauce!

I was ever so tempted to let him have it but then I thought about the mess, my Boss suit and the fact that the place would look like an abattoir if I’d burst the bottle open, so I put it down, let the guy fall off the bar and went back to the other end where Steve was calmly drinking his Bolli.

‘Steve, it’s been about 30 minutes since we started hitting this guy, the barman must’ve called the police by now, I think we’d better move on’, I said.

‘Not before I finish my champers’, was the reply.

Who The **** Is Nigel Smarther-Blair ?

We’d had a call. A strange call. It was from California – we could see the incoming number. They said they had an interesting and potentially lucrative business proposition to put to me and they wanted to meet as soon as possible. I said I’d fly down and meet them and they’d said Monday would do which was only two days away. Flights were arranged and they said we’d be met at the airport. They also asked me to keep the meeting with them quiet.

After the weekend, Steve and I got on the flight to San Fran and sure enough there was guy waiting to meet us just outside ‘Arrivals’ – the ‘meet and greet’ card held by their driver at the airport said ‘VeezaCard’ which was strange considering they said the project was top secret! We were whisked off in a stretch limo to a Mexican restaurant some place just outside San Francisco where the rest of the Veezcard team were already downing frozen Margaritas. I stupidly allowed one of them to choose my food, not being a connoisseur of Mexican cuisine and was ‘treated’ to chicken and chocolate sauce which was absolutely disgusting. Why do Mexicans combine their main course with dessert!

We chatted a bit during the meal, introductions and the like and then we went a few blocks to a bar where Bruce Springsteen used to play when he was first starting out, not that I was impressed with that, and then the wine started to flow. Californian of course.

It appeared that he Veezacard guys had been monitoring our business and had been informed by somebody that our software was ‘state of the art’ and they wanted to buy it so their treasury operation could use it in the investment division. The conversation, at a very high level, continued well in to the night, however despite my increasingly inebriated state, I knew there was a bigger fish to catch. Rather than sell them the software, why didn’t we manage their funds – apparently there was a spare $100 million to invest!

At about 2am, I felt duty bound to pay the bill at ‘Bruce Springsteen’s’ bar but when I went to sign the check, making sure I had my Veezacard prominently on display, I didn’t have a pen and the barman couldn’t find his. The girl at the bar who I had been talking to didn’t have one either so I was forced to ask Paul, my Veezacard opposite number if he had one, which he did. I noticed it was quite a nice roller-ball with the Veezacard logo and ‘Project Trident’ engraved on it.

Once I’d signed the voucher, I turned back to Jemimah who had taken quite a shine to me – I think! I said

that unfortunately I had an important meeting early the next morning and reluctantly said my goodbyes and she handed me her business card. She seemed disappointed. From what I could see it looked like she worked for an up-market fragrance house. It was all very tempting but I hadn’t even been to our hotel in San Francisco. Anyway, I was too drunk, she was too beautiful and that was the way it was left.

The next morning we had to meet Veezacard in a conference suite in a hotel which my office had booked. My head was still spinning (I’d only had about 3 hours sleep) and it was absolutely lashing down with rain. The cab only took about 10 minutes to travel the ten or so blocks and as Steve paid the fare, I ducked out of the cab and ran into the hotel.

Once inside, orange juice and smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels were the order of the day before the meeting started. I wanted to make sure we wanted for nothing so I dashed down to reception to give them my card and to tell them that we needed the best possible service. But then as I went to get my card, I realised that my wallet, which I knew I had put in my suit inside pocket when leaving my hotel, had disappeared. Bugger!

When I got back to the conference room, I made my excuses and started phoning round my banks and credit card companies to cancel my cards. Steve was the software man in any case and he’d probably take till lunchtime giving Veezacard an overview of the system capabilities. It was all a bit of a show of course, we had no intentions of selling them the software but giving them the key attributes of the system and some, but not all of the algorithms, would be the sprat to catch the mackerel.

I couldn’t taste the lunch of lobster, deep fried crab pieces and salad, for thinking of the creep who would probably be spending his (or her) way round San Fran with my cards. But in the afternoon session, I put my personal problems to the back of my mind and sprung the surprise on the Veezacard guys – no sale of the software but we’ll manage your funds for you.

Initially I thought they were going to leave as Paul signalled to his guys to go outside but they just wanted a couple of minutes to discuss this ‘excocet’ as he called it.

When they were outside, Steve asked me if I’d noticed anything about Paul and his team. ‘Nope – regular guys’, I said. ‘Every one of them is gay’, he said. ‘Every single one of them – all ten of them’.

When Paul and his team re-entered the room, I watched them with renewed interest. And there they were – all the discreet and some not so discreet signs that they were gay. The touching of each other’s arms when talking to each other. The hands on the hips when trying to make a point. Steve was right – 100% correct. How come I hadn’t noticed? As far as I was concerned it didn’t matter one jot, just as long as they bought my plan.

Paul said that this new approach would need to be discussed with the Treasury guys and called the meeting to a halt but not before he reinforced the message that the project was absolutely top-secret. Their newish President wasn’t a fan of doing anything outside the company and if word got out either about buying the software or managing some of their funds, Paul would be for the high-jump. I reassured him and we called the meeting to a halt.

I couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel. I just wanted to crash out for several hours.

I downed a large G&T from the mini-bar and lay on the bed, fully clothed. What seemed like hours later but was actually only about 30 minutes from when I lay down, I was awoken from my slumbers by my room phone ringing. I could hear the screaming voice before the earpiece even touched my ear. ‘What the fuck have you been doing?’ I recognised Paul’s slightly camp voice. ‘What are you on about Paul?, I asked. ‘I’ve just been summoned to a meeting with the President and his first words were, ‘who the fuck is Nigel Smarther-Blair and why do the FBI want to speak to him and what the fuck is Project Trident?

Eventually, I managed to convince Paul that I had no idea what he was on about. I’d never spoken to his President, I had no idea what Project Trident was and why did the FBI want to speak to me? I said we’d better meet later that night.

Paul gave me the number the FBI had left and after calling it and having been told to get down to their office, I dashed downstairs, jumped into a waiting cab and a couple of blocks later, I entered a rather grubby building. I explained at a sort of reception that I was to meet a Sergeant Joel Schmitt and a few seconds later, a huge guy came out of a door and grabbed my hand and shook it.

‘Is this yours?’ he asked holding up my black leather Cambridge wallet.

To cut a long story short, my wallet must’ve fallen from my pocket when I left the cab that morning. Amazingly, of all the people who could have picked it up, Sergeant Joel Schmitt of the FBI had spotted it lying in the rain and so started a rather clever, but short sequence of events.

There was nothing in the wallet to say where I was staying and nothing which allowed Schmitt to trace me to my office as I kept my business cards in a separate holder. But there was a business card from a Jemimah Parker – the girl at the bar the previous evening. Schmitt had phoned her and she’d said she had no idea where I was staying but she had a pen which I'd left in the bar and said that I worked for Veezacard and I was on the Trident project! Schmitt had then phoned Veezacard and when the telephonist heard the letters ‘FBI’, she had put him through to the President whereupon Schmitt explained that he needed to trace one of their employees, a Nigel Smarther-Blair! The President had then called Paul into his office and laid into him big time.

Later that evening I explained the whole story to Paul who I anticipated would be fuming. Over a bottle or three of Californian Chardonnay we resolved our differences. I apologised for dropping him in it with his President, albeit unknowingly, and Paul announced that when he’d explained what Project Trident was, his President was quite enthusiastic about an external company managing some of their funds and wanted the project to proceed as fast as possible. It was music to my ears – and all because of a borrowed roller-ball pen and a girl’s business card!

The Girls of Madison Avenue - Shelagh

Samantha had moved on. The London office had terminated her employment but had arranged for her to fly back to the UK first class with Virgin – ironic or what? We never heard from her again.

I have to admit that going back to my apartment at night and being on my own was quite dispiriting. I really missed Samantha but within a few weeks of being celibate I’d decided to make some changes to my life. I sub-leased the apartment and moved back into the duplex at the Chambers. I took up jogging and used the various trails through Central Park to get rid of some of the flab which had gathered around my middle and which had affected my performance, as Samantha had commented on a couple of times.

The girls in Madison had obviously known that Samantha was ‘numero uno’ and had kept their distance, not daring to come near me or even smile in my direction but now she’d gone, it was like a man-hunt. It was all so terribly obvious that I had to laugh but it didn’t stop me taking advantage of it all.

The first was Shelagh, who despite her Irish name was from Boston. She was some sort of admin clerk. She had a fabulous body, a bit on the short side but terrific legs and long blonde, semi-curly hair. Had Shelagh been another 4 inches taller she would have been stunning.

A couple of lunches was all it took. She literally dragged me back to the Chambers, told me she was a virgin and begged me to get on with it. I was stunned by her revelation given how forward she was but I did my best to help start her sexual education and boy, when she started, she didn’t stop – ever!

She was the original Martini girl – anytime, anyplace, anywhere! Public, private – it made no difference to Shelagh. One of her favourite tricks was to drop a fork in a restaurant and not reappear for 10 minutes by which time I was choking on my food. In the three years she, sorry, we, continued with her education, she built up an encyclopaedic knowledge of Manhattan restaurants which had either discreet dining booths, or long table cloths, or both! I wouldn’t go as far as saying that Shelagh was a nymphomaniac but she certainly erased any memory of Samantha and indeed made her look like Mother Teresa by comparison!

The problem was that she was engaged to be married but whilst the engagement continued, so did her ‘education’ but she’d made it quite clear that once married, that would be it, but in the meantime she’d continue studying!

The last time I saw her was two days before her wedding. I was sitting in Madison flicking through the Wall Street Journal before heading off to see a client for a breakfast meeting when the phone rang – it was 8am. I recognised the voice immediately despite the fact that Shelagh had resigned two months previously to get ready to move to Boston with her new husband.

There was no small talk. ‘My wedding dress fitter is arriving at my apartment in precisely 90 minutes. If you can get here in under an hour, you can give me my wedding present’. The phone was heading for the cradle before she finished her sentence and I was heading for the door where a Town Car was waiting to take me to my client’s offices. A quick call to the client cancelling our meeting and the car was heading off to Queens. Luckily I knew where Shelagh lived having dropped her home and steamed up the lifts on quite a few occasions and even more fortuitous, all the traffic was heading the other way. My driver made it in 50 minutes and we even stopped for champagne and flowers. He got a $50 tip and was told to wait.

I entered her apartment where she was wearing the most amazing French lingerie set and had the most amazing sex of my life. When I left later that morning, that was that – I never saw or heard from Shelagh again.

Then there was Cheryl …….

Easy Come – Easy Go

A couple of months after the Sparks episode where Samantha had managed to upset a crowd of supposedly Mafiosa who were having a nice, quiet dinner until she started shouting about ‘fucking yanks’, word was sent through Pelinni that we would not be welcome in Sparks – ever again. I wasn’t too worried about the ban from Sparks – Harry’s, just off Wall Street does a better steak and its 82 Margaux is also a mite cheaper but it was Richard Pelinni who was worrying me. How come the hoodlums were using him as their mouthpiece and, looking back, I was desperately trying to remember how we had recruited him. I resolved to try and find out about his background but that was for another day.

Today we were going to make some money. I’d been given a tip about Google coming to the market. Not it’s listing – everybody knew the day they’d start trading. I’d actually been given information about HermesDirect, a company in New Jersey used by the SEC to run part of the ‘Dutch Auction’ which was the process by which Google shares would be allocated. It was all relatively simple – get over to the Harborside Centre in New Jersey on several Friday nights and get Samantha to ‘befriend’ one of the guys in Hermes. This was months before the float and long before anybody even knew that Hermes Direct would be used as part of Google’s auction process. Nobody smelled a thing – apart from Samantha!

Everybody knew the Google share price would rocket and to maximise our potential profits we needed to maximise our shareholding right from the start. I spoke to Daddy and he authorised an extra $5 million to be transferred into our trading account which, I have to say took a bit of persuading but eventually he agreed. It was a great move and one which put me in Daddy’s good books for quite a few years.

The 19^th August 2004 will remain with me forever. On that seminal day, as we electronically posted our bids for Google stock, exactly 50 cents over the mid-price of the current bids and as relayed to Samantha by Blackberry by her HermesDirect toy-boy ‘lover’, who just happened to be one of the authorised auctioneers, we were allocated block after block of Google stock. At the end of the day we managed to get our hands on 59,000 Google shares at an average price of $85 each. We used every last cent of Daddy’s $5m.

Two months later we sold the Google stock for just over $40 million. A 700% return in two months!! A fucking triumph. Well it was a triumph until Richard Pelinni came into my office the following Monday morning and tendered his resignation. I was about to give him a $250k bonus for the Google scam but I could replace him and save myself some money so we shook hands and that was that. Or I thought it was. As he moved towards my office door, he turned and informed me that ‘the guys in Sparks would be visiting in a few days and wanted to pick up their $2m’. Without going into details, he said that Samantha’s behaviour that night had caused a bit of a stir and had drawn us to the attention of some ‘undesirables’. The fact that Pelinni knew these guys, was also a complication and did not help as you might think it would. The little turd had started feeding the ‘Sparks’ guys information about our operations and in particular, our coup with Google. They wanted 5% of our profit. There was no point in asking what the alternative was.

That night as Samantha tried yet another position and complained loudly that I ‘didn’t seem up to it’, I let my mind wander to the fact that if she hadn’t had such a big mouth, we wouldn’t be paying out $2m the following week. Ok, she was great in the sack and normally took my mind off everything, but the Mafia, (I assumed that’s who they were) asking for $2m was enough to nullify anything she did to my body. I just lay there wondering why they didn’t use their ‘contacts’ to get their hands on 50,000 Google shares and do what we did but I suppose there was little excitement in that. I also suspected that they wanted us to refuse to pay so they could have some fun, especially with Samantha! All because of a fucking undercooked steak!

I spoke to Daddy and he said we should pay. After all, we’d made $35m profit. $2m was peanuts he said but there was a condition – ‘get rid of that fucking woman’ was his edict.

The following Monday I said goodbye to $2m, and Samantha. I always hated losing money and handing the suitcase over to the guy who arrived at reception looking like a badly shaved gorilla was one of the lowest points in my career. Losing Samantha didn’t come easily either. In a strange way she was probably worth more than the $2m I had just handed over.

That night as she moved her stuff out of my apartment which overlooked Central Park and was just round the corner from the Chambers, I felt a twinge of misplaced sympathy for her. She’d been brilliant in setting up the US operation with me. She’d found Chambers and this apartment and she’d been a huge diversion for me after hours but after one last kiss, she smiled, took her envelope containing $250k and left her key on the hall chest of drawers before closing the door quietly.