Manhattan might carry in Central Park at night.
I walked into the middle of the group, trying to put a yard between me and Joe.
'I got some ice here, just a dime,' said the tall kid. He had a lopsided grin on his face. He didn't really believe that we had come all this way into the park just to buy crack from him, but he was willing to play along.
'A dime?'
'Yeah, ten bucks, man, just ten bucks.' He held out a small packet. I reached into my pocket as if to dig out some money. Joe looked on, not sure what to do.
Suddenly, I shouted, 'Run!' and snatched the packet from the kid's hands. I pushed my way through the group, brushing one of them off, but two of the others grabbed me.
I heard a shout, 'Hey, that mother's got a knife!' There was a sharp cry from one of the kids holding me, and his grip loosened.
I saw flashes of steel, as two more leapt on Joe, knives in hand. There was another scream, which was cut short.
One of the kids still had a grip on me. I swung round, fist clenched, and landed a perfect punch into his solar plexus. He went down on his knees, gasping. Then I felt a blow on the side of my head, I couldn't see where it came from. It was hard; it left my ears singing and my eyes unable to focus. It was followed by a boot in the ribs, which knocked the breath out of me and threw me off balance.
I rolled over and saw Joe surrounded by three kids, all with knives. Two others were on the ground, one completely still, and the other holding his leg and groaning.
The kids tried to lunge at Joe, but he was very quick, turning from one to the other. One of them didn't pull his arm back fast enough, and let out a howl of pain as Joe's knife slashed his forearm.
Joe backed towards me as the other two came at him warily, feinting on one side and then the other. I saw my chance. I stretched out my leg, and kicked at Joe's ankle. He lost his balance. He didn't fall, but he gave one of the kids an opening. Half a second was all it took for a knife to be plunged into Joe's side. As he doubled up, the other kid stuck him deep in the back.
Joe spun round and fell to the ground. He looked at me, his face screwed up in pain, but his eyes as cold as ever. Then he coughed, some blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth and that expressionless stare was locked for ever.
I scrambled to my feet and took off. One of the kids tried to follow me, but I was too fast, spurred on by large doses of adrenalin.
I ran all the way back to the Westbury. I dashed straight up to my room, into the bathroom and threw up. I rang the restaurant where I was supposed to meet the man from Harrison Brothers, and told him I would not be coming. I ordered a bottle of whisky from room service, and when the room became fuzzy round the edges, I went to bed, to a night of fitful sleep.
CHAPTER 14
I awoke with a headache and a strong desire to leave New York. In those indistinct seconds between sleep and wakefulness, I once again saw Joe's eyes fixed in their final stare as he lay beneath the boulder in the park. Fortunately, I was booked on an early flight, so I lost no time in getting showered and dressed, and heading for the airport. It was only when I felt the aircraft leave the runway at La Guardia, and saw Manhattan Island receding into the distance beneath and behind me, that I finally began to relax.
Even at nine o'clock in the morning Phoenix was hot. It was a physical shock to walk out of the cool dark terminal into the bright reflection of the sunlight. Locals ambled past in short-sleeved shirts, sunglasses and deep tans. In less than a minute I was sweating in my suit as I carried my bags over to the large sign which read 'Bloomfield Weiss High Yield Bond Conference'.
They had laid on long white stretch limousines to take the conference participants to the hotel. Within seconds I was back in air-conditioned quiet again. I waived the Scotch in the minibar, and sat back to watch the wood and concrete structures of Phoenix glide by. I supposed that it was perfectly possible to spend all of your life in Phoenix at sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit, with only brief bursts of extra heat as you transferred from air-conditioned house to air-conditioned car to air-conditioned office.
After half an hour's drive, we reached the hotel. I dumped my things in my room, and went for a stroll. The rooms were grouped in small whitewashed buildings with red-tiled roofs, surrounding little courtyards. Bougainvillaea was everywhere, adding splashes of purple and green to the white and blue of buildings and swimming pools. There seemed to be pools everywhere. Most of the little courtyards had one, and there was a large central pool just by the main building. Sprinklers strained to ensure that the immaculate patches of green approached the perfection of Astro Turf.
I walked into the main building. Immediately, the dazzling colours outside gave way to dark muted creams and browns. The air-conditioning roared in the background. Although attempts were made to perpetuate the Mexican atmosphere, there was no disguising the impression of a financial centre in temporary accommodation. Signs abounded, telling me to do a hundred things at once. They were dominated by a large banner proclaiming, 'Welcome to the fourth Bloomfield Weiss High Yield Bond Conference'. Everywhere tables were piled with conference documentation and registration forms. I had a peek into one of the conference halls, a dark cavern bristling with electronic gadgetry.
A number of people were wandering around aimlessly. Clean-cut, with carefully ironed slacks and short-sleeved shirts, you could tell they had been plucked only a day ago from the investment offices of New York, Boston, Minneapolis or Hartford. They all had badges giving name, rank and organisation. I felt naked without one, and set off in search of the right registration desk to pick mine up. Properly labelled, I went back to my room to pull on some running shorts, and get some exercise.
It was mid-morning, and the temperature was rising steadily. I stretched, and then set out at a gentle jog towards a long low hill with two humps, which I later learned was called appropriately 'Camelback'.
I soon found myself climbing up a rocky desert slope. The only vegetation was thorny bushes and cacti. Lizards and insects scurried from sunshine to shade. I ran slowly and methodically. It was still very hot, and the temperature combined with the incline took it out of me. One of the digital thermometers that adorn buildings all over the US claimed that it was ninety-one degrees. But it was also very dry, and in a way more pleasant than the lower temperatures but higher humidity of New York in summer.
Halfway up the hill, I paused for breath. It would be foolish to push myself too hard in this heat. I turned to look at the city sprawling below me. European cities evolve over the centuries out of their natural setting, nestling in a valley or at the confluence of two rivers. Phoenix looked as though a giant hand had drawn a square grid over the desert and dropped neat blocks of buildings on to it, one by one. Which wasn't too far from what had actually happened. It was a tribute to the inventiveness and prosperity of Americans that such a city could exist in such an inhospitable climate. Of course with air-conditioning, a vast water-distribution network and swimming-pools, this unfriendly environment could be transformed into the ideal setting for the modern American dream. That was why Phoenix was one of the fastest growing cities in the country.
I decided running in this temperature was a bad idea and spent a pleasant hour or so lying on a rock alone on the hillside, letting the sun beat down on my face and remove some of the tension of the last few days.
Every investment bank with any pretensions to deal in the junk bond market hosts a high yield conference. They are schizophrenic occasions. The organisers, following the lead given by Drexel Burnham Lambert's notorious 'Predators' Ball', feel the need to create an extravaganza in exotic locations, where powerful controllers of billions of dollars can do deals and have fun. There is a bit of the showman in every high yield salesman, and this appeals to their ideal of what the whole thing should be about. Unfortunately for them, most of their customers are earnest young men and women whose overriding concerns are such questions as 'Will Safeway's new inventory control systems really increase margins by half a per cent?'. These people demand a gruelling schedule of presentations that start at eight o'clock in the morning and often don't finish till seven at night. This was the first such conference I had been to, and whilst I was looking forward to seeing some of the presentations by companies issuing high yield bonds, I also wanted to meet some other investors, and perhaps catch an hour or two by the pool. It might help me
