"Something serious." I pointed toward the single malt. Laphroaig neat.
Just then Bill paused to watch as two women in bulky raincoats brushed past. They receded toward the other end of the bar, settled their coats across an empty stool, and ordered drinks. One was a youngish blonde, a bit nervous, having some tall, colored potion that looked as if it could use a cut of pineapple and a plastic monkey on the glass. But the other one, brunette, was a different story. Pained eyes, with a psychic armor that could only be called battle-weary New York. Joanna, all over again. Tanqueray martini. Straight up.
"Hot damn, sure is good to be back in this town." He was trying, without conspicuous success, to catch the younger woman's eye.
"Henderson, you're standing next to a man with some news that could well alarm you considerably."
"Like maybe this dump might run low on booze?"
"Not likely." I reached for my new drink. "I've got to make a decision, fast. So try to keep a clear head and see if you can help me out."
In my estimation Henderson was a phenomenon—sober or loaded. He'd emerged from the red clay hills somewhere in north Georgia, former football All-State ("I only did it for the pussy"), and ended up at Yale Law—where we shared an apartment for three whole years. By the time we'd finished our degrees, I figured I was ready to tackle real life, but Bill had hung in and gone for a Ph.D. in economics. Although his athlete's physique hadn't survived Yale—an early casualty of the single malt and the Dunhills—Henderson still had the delusion he was twenty-five. Easter before last he'd arrived at my place down in the islands with some leggy print model half his age and a case of Jack Daniel's Black. Did the redneck routine bamboozle the cautious hearts of his admiring ladies? Probably. Right under the radar.
All that notwithstanding, it was a commonly accepted fact that Bill was the sharpest private currency-trader on the East Coast. If tomorrow the dollar was about to dive, the guy who'd already sold it short tonight from Hong Kong to Zurich was invariably Henderson. That part of his life had been all over the papers the previous spring, after he got tapped for the President's Council of Economic Advisers. I guess some genius on the White House staff—urged on by that wily senator from New York, our mutual friend Jack O'Donnell—concluded the Council needed a pet "contrarian" on board for appearances, and Henderson looked to be a sufficiently pro-business prospect. Wrong. After a couple of interviews he was forbidden to make any more public statements. He'd failed to grasp that the national interest required fantasy forecasts just before elections. Bill may have been a master of subtlety when he was trading, but otherwise he tended to call a spade a spade, or worse.
"What's up?" He was about to punt with the blonde after one last try.
"Maybe you'd better go first." I took a sip, savoring the peaty aroma. Let Henderson decompress in his own good time, then sound him out on Noda's chilling proposition. "What are you doing here?"