"I'm taking your warning under advisement." I threw down a fifty, glanced at the soundless Mets game on the TV over the bar, and reached for my coat.
"You'd damned well better."
"Henderson, get some sleep. As a friend and colleague, I must in all honesty advise you, you look like absolute hell."
"I've always valued your candor." He waved for another drink. "But I've got some heavy thinking to do."
"Okay, get home safe. Let's keep in touch."
He saluted with his glass. "Tell you what, Matt, maybe I'll just do a little sniffing around myself, see if I can't get a fix on what's up the tree."
"Okay." I was putting on my coat, checking through the window to see if the rain had stopped. Looked like it had. "Let's both sleep on it."
"You do that." He wasn't smiling as I headed out the door.
Henderson, who could slumber like a baby when he was down a million for the day, didn't look like he had much rest ahead that night. For all my brave talk, I didn't either. Now that the rain was over, I wandered over to Fifth to look at the trees sparkling in the streetlights. And to think. If you're from West Texas, you love to see green things wet.
Then I hailed a cab downtown, still with lots of unanswered questions on the subject of Matsuo Noda. What had happened to my country that could make it so vulnerable to the financial shenanigans of a single white-haired foreign banker? Was this what people meant when they talked about the tides of history? Was the free ride over?