C2 Chauncey Gibbons

It was Christmas Eve.

Chauncey Gibbons walked out of the Olympic Club on Post Street. He attended his first annual Christmas dinner at the club.

Chauncey was considered third generation new money.

Most members were old money, with a lineage that went back to the gold and silver mines. They owned vast tracks of farming and lumber land. They calculated stock trades in millions of shares. They owned companies whose profits were in the billions. They had feasted on the resources, not only of their own country but of many others as well, for hundreds years.

At this point, it was beneath them to work. They came to the

club for lunch and played dominoes all afternoon. Minions were paid to manage their fortunes.

Chauncey’s father and grandfather had thrived on work. His grandfather worked until he was ninety. His father died while closing a deal at seventy-six.

New money could live with old money in Pacific Heights and Sea Cliff. But they could not gain entrance to the Olympic Club.

But now, as Chauncey Gibbons paused at the top of the mar- ble steps, between the classic columns depicting bare-ass, tiny-pecker Greeks, he chuckled at the fools he’d left behind him.

It had taken one deal after another to pull his membership vote into place. He targeted the people he knew were favorable to him with an invitation to join in an investment adventure that inevitably rewarded them well.

They owed him.

He made sure the deals were big enough that they knew they owed him. Smaller deals would never cut it. They would be perceived as kiss-ass gestures to gain a brief greeting at a posh eatery.

Then, a year ago, he called in his chips.

The board reconsidered his membership. He was deemed acceptable. Basically, he brutalized the remaining uncertain votes on the board into accepting him. Blackmail was the ball-breaker, the dealmaker.

It was a strong closer. Kidnapping, of course, was reserved for foreign countries. In America, blackmail was the last card to be played. But what must be done, must be done, Chauncey told himself.

He had never paid so dearly for so much dirt in his life. But once he was accepted, he went right to work, as surreptitious as it

was.

He started off slowly, perhaps being seen in the dining room,

huddled in a conversation with a client that was only conveyed in whispers. He would stop by the bar and find himself in a conversa- tion with a rich sot who wouldn’t speak to him if he weren’t lonely and half in the bag. But the conversation left the sot indebted by the embarrassment he might suffer should Chauncey ever start rumors around the club.

Chauncey knew how to get dirt out of people, but he never started rumors. Indebtedness was far more valuable. Chauncey not only treasured their secrets, he loved to keep them.

Chauncey loved letting the man live in a state of trust and non- trust, his brain always suspicious that Chauncey might betray him.

Fundamentally, he understood that people were easiest to manipulate if you had them at your emotional mercy. He had sold the idea to the Palin people before her first election—in a sixty-sec- ond phone call.

Nothing gave Chauncey a boner like closing a deal in record time.

His notion proved invaluable in paving the road to her election. She owed him. She knew she owed him. This was a chip whose value would grow. He was not about to spend it unwisely.

Chauncey pulled out his black leather gloves and stretched them over his hands. He leaned back and took a deep breath of the thick fog. The chill of a Christmas night invigorated him. He buttoned the black leather gloves at the wrist.

Then he paused before descending the steps of the Olympic Club to let the homeless man pass on the sidewalk. The man dressed in rags, and wearing what looked like the remains of a black cape, continued pushing his shopping cart, draped with an American flag, down the hill.

Chauncey checked his watch. Time to call El Presidente, he told himself and pulled out his cell, before he goes to Midnight Mass.

Chump Wild descended into the bank of fog that grew thicker and thicker, the further down the hill he went.

It was if he was descending into hell.

The owls had set something off in him. That’s how they were sometimes. But he always came back to them to make sure they were still there.

Sometimes he felt like Sal Mineo or Marlon Brando in some New York rooftop scene with Billy as the hero at the center of the film about a pathetic man who has a secret collection of pigeons he cares for.

Billy spent whole days imagining himself as this or that actor in this or that movie. Sometimes he confused his actors and movies. But it took him away from things. And it was a whole lot better than the rages, which led to him being called Wild Billy.

He wasn’t born Wild Billy. His real name was Oscar McBain. He was an accountant at an investment firm in the financial district. The investment firm was called Eagles Fly Global. It was owned by Chauncey Gibbons, the biggest prick of them all.

And then one Christmas Eve, Santa came along to say, “Here’s your pink slip, pretty boy.” Quite literally. There was also a check for ten dollars marked Bonus. The check was signed by Chauncey Gibbons.

The note attached to the check was also signed by Chauncey Gibbons and said, “Don’t spend it all in one place, chump.”

Oscar McBain had never offended Chauncey Gibbons.

Oscar McBain had never met Chauncey Gibbons.

Sometimes he saw him at a distance, dashing through the lobby to the car waiting outside. But he was always surrounded by high-powered clients or his top managers and security was on high alert whenever he left the building.

Oscar McBain walked home that night with his pink slip. He took a route almost identical to the one he was taking tonight. He was going home then. He was going home tonight.

Billy reached the bottom of Post Street and came to Union Square. The tall Christmas tree was still lit in the center of the square. A few people were still circling the outdoor skating rink.

It was late, even for Christmas Eve. All the stores were closed; all the traffic was gone. Even the taxi stand in front of the St. Francis Hotel was empty.

He stopped and stood in the moonlit shadows of Macy’s and Saks and Tiffany’s, remembering all the years he had brought his young family to Macy’s to visit Santa. Billy Wild had three little girls.

His wife of fifteen years, Isabel, would watch the kids while Billy slipped off to Tiffany’s. Every Christmas, he bought Isabel yet another piece of jewelry that would make her heart glow for him.

But that was a lifetime ago.

Or was it only a few years?

Billy noticed a band of Young Zealots up ahead, handing out

crusts of bread. Twenty starving people patiently stood in line, rub- bing their hands together and huddling inside their rags to protect themselves against the cold.

Because it was Christmas Eve, they were also handing out cups of water with the crusts of bread. Water was hard to come by these days.

As always, the supplicants were asked to kneel on the cold side-walk and recite the Pledge of Allegiance while a Young Zealot held the crust of bread and cup of water close to the mouth of the suppli- cant. Any flaws in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance sent the suppli- cant back to the end of the line for a fresh start.

Billy decided he couldn’t pay the price this time. He had paid the price too many times already. He backed up before any of the Young Zealots could see him. Ignoring their generosity might be seen as unpatriotic.

He quickly pushed his shopping cart down Powell Street, so the short wall surrounding the square would hide him from view. If he were going to die, better to die at home.