7:57 a.m.
As Alexa stepped out of the lobby, the morning was glorious and clear. Spring had arrived in a burst of pear and cherry blossoms in the garden of St. Luke's Church, up the street, but here by the river the morning air was still brisk enough to make her skin tingle. The sun was lightening the east, setting a golden halo above the skyscrapers of mid‑town. Here, with the wind tasting lightly of salt, the roadways were Sunday‑morning silent and it was a magic time that always made her feel the world was young and perfect and she was capable of anything.
This was her private thinking time—even dreaming time—and she shared it only with Knickers, who was trotting along beside her now, full of enthusiasm. Ally suspected that her sheepdog enjoyed their morning runs along the river even more than she did.
As she headed south, toward Battery Park City, she pondered the weird phone call she'd just gotten from Grant Seth Hampton. That was his full name. She called him Grant, but her mother, Nina, always called him Seth. Unfortunately, by whatever name, Grant Seth Hampton, an unremitting hustler, was still her brother. She wished it were not so, but some things couldn't be changed.
In truth, she actually thought Grant had exhibited a kind of sequential personality over his life. When they were kids, he'd seemed rakish but also decent. At the time, of course, she was impulsive and rebellious herself, admiring of his spunk. Now she viewed that as his Early Personality.
Later, when he was pushing thirty and the Wall Street pressure and the coke moved in, he evolved into Personality
Number Two. He lost touch with reality and in the process he also lost his inner moral compass. His character bent and then broke under the stress, proving, she now supposed, that he was actually a weak reed after all. Now she didn't know what his personality was.
Grant, Grant, she often lamented, how did everything manage to turn out so bad with you?
He'd been a bond trader for Goldman, and at family gatherings he'd brag about making three hundred thou a year. But he had a high‑maintenance lifestyle involving downtown models he was constantly trying to impress with jewelry and expensive vacations, so that wasn't enough. He decided to freelance on the side. He set up a Web site and, with his broker's license, opened a retail business trading naked futures contracts on Treasuries. He managed to get some naive clients and for a while made a profit for them. But then the market turned against him, or maybe he lost his rabbit's foot, and he began losing a lot of other people's money.
A couple of his clients with heavy losses felt that he'd misrepresented the risk, and they were getting ready to sue. They also were threatening to file a complaint with the SEC. There was a real possibility he could be barred from the financial industry for life.