Four Boarsmen

Mid-Town; New York City, New York; Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Jimmy Richter sipped his Johnnie Walker Blue and surveyed the room to see which of the finest ladies at Club Felix was going to have the pleasure of his company and his bed that night. The bar rarely disappointed him in its choice of exotic women available for the taking. And the taking was never difficult. He possessed a lanky body with a precise, tapered haircut and spoke with a languid West Texas drawl, a drawl few women could place because New York bitches didn’t know the difference between Amarillo, where he was born in 1980, and Atlanta. Dressed in his customary Anderson & Sheppard bespoke suit and custom-cobbled G.J. Cleverley & Co. shoes, Jimmy never went home alone any night he did not choose to.

He was the eldest of four brothers, which included twins David and Daniel and the youngest brother, Carl. He first perfected the art of baiting women while competing against his brothers back home. The siblings shared their triumphs over family dinners, and his father, James Richter Sr., kept a running tally of his sons’ accomplishments, pitting them against each other in their libidinal rivalries. None of the boys, especially Jimmy, ever established, let alone appreciated, a committed relationship. It was a foreign concept, really. He knew enough about women to achieve what he wanted. Texas women wanted hearts and flowers before fucking; they expected politeness, chivalry, deference. New York ladies wanted men straight-forward and damn-near arrogant and in fact seemed to get more excited and infatuated the more egotistical a man became. He found the East Coast bitches, especially the ones from overseas, far less tedious.

Jimmy was a commodities trader who had successfully launched his own hedge fund. He saw the world as an amalgam of markets, just waiting to be conquered. He made no exceptions for Club Felix. He considered the women he eyed as merely commodities to be bought, sold, traded, bought again, sold short, taken delivery of, and even allowed to expire. Commodity option contracts, to be exact—his option to dine, to date, to vacation with, and of course to sleep with at his whim. And he relished pursuing multiple avenues. It amused him to evaluate and label each one as he looked them over. The blonde in the black mini was at market top, while the one in the power-red business suit, strutting four-inch, pointy-toed pumps was definitely stopped out. He gave the late-20s brunette ‘AAA’ status just on her firm body and attitude alone, but the redhead rated only a ‘BBB’. If he considered her at all, possessing an abandonment option was mandatory. They were all fungible commodities, just of different grades; nothing more, nothing less. And certainly nothing to involve himself with on any kind of permanent basis. As his daddy always said, “Every man is born free and equal; if he gets married, it’s his own damned fault.” (Although this was more amusingly anecdotal than gospel on his dad’s part since the senior Richter taught his sons that they were in fact without equal.) Jimmy did not consider his approach to women fraudulent. Any woman looking for something permanent in a bar was only deluding herself.

Jimmy knew of men who first scoped out the ladies he thought of as ‘CCC’ before going for higher-ranked women. The men considered the low-rated floozies a hedge: In case they bombed out at the higher levels, they still had something to take home and fuck. Jimmy never looked for a fallback position. He assumed every woman needed him more than he needed her. And by his choosing her, he conveyed to his woman-of-the-moment that he was a favor and a delight beyond anything she could attain elsewhere. So, no, he never needed to fall back.

Not that women didn’t have their place in his life. They filled his hunger for the hunt, for competition. It’s just that some made the chase too fucking pathetically easy, which was why he really liked the bitches who acted as if their pussies were only for the elite. The ones like Elaine, whom he had pursued for months and who was just on the verge of giving in. The ones to whom he had to prove he was equal to their status. The ones rivals didn’t have the cojones to chase, thinking they were off limits, including his staff’s better halves; halves his staff knew Jimmy considered fair game as well.

Finishing his second drink, Jimmy determined it was time to exercise his option on Ms. ‘AAA’. He had already learned her name was Carol. Looking her over on previous occasions, he knew her confidence, her preference for Jimmy Choo stilettos, and her exquisite dress sense that perfectly enhanced her toned body. The trader realized that knowing about fashion and the names of all the bastards who made money at it was just part of mastering the game. A game like all others he was intent on winning.

In his quest to sway Carol, at calculated intervals over the past few weeks, he had sent her drinks with his business card and his compliments; drawing her in, but not yet making his move. She had acknowledged him and had given him her name, but, like the haughty princess she envisioned herself to be, did not encourage him. Just as well. Clearly she was worthy of the chase, but would never be his equal. He enjoyed the game.

He made eye contact with her now. She held his gaze then looked away, cool and serene.

Earlier, when he ordered his second Johnnie Walker Blue, he had also ordered the gimlet he knew Carol preferred. It was one of the things he found interesting about her. Most women seemed to order Grey Goose martinis with vulgar regularity; it was almost a tribal badge of New York’s single women. Carol drank gimlets, clean with Bombay Sapphire and Rose’s lime. He had given the waitress his card to deliver along with the gimlet. On the back, he had written “8:00 @ Per Se.”

He knew the restaurant was a little bit of a cliché, but that was the point. Besides, he had already scored once that day, and it had put him in the mood to reel Carol in and score again.

Earlier during trading, after weeks of falling prices, he had been purchasing West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil at higher and higher prices. Traders had speculated the market would momentarily bounce and go back up to previous levels before selling off again. And it had rallied. With the market now churning in an area of resistance where it was widely expected to fail, Jimmy daringly placed an aggressive bid to purchase a large quantity of call options to precipitously drive up the price of crude oil.

On the phone with several brokers, Jimmy barked, “Where’s the fuckin’ offer on the December 90 call? Get me an offer for 10,000 contracts, all or none. I’ll pay $0.47 right now! If you don’t get me a market, you won’t be doin’ business with me . . . maybe ever! I need an offer right now, god dammit, before this thing explodes!”

The order spooked traders, causing the price of crude oil to breach a perceived area of resistance. The upside breakout brought a multitude of buy orders, all from weak hands, allowing Jimmy to sell every long contract and more, flipping his position from a bullish stance to a bearish outlook. The rally quickly lost momentum. Jimmy canceled his order to purchase the call options and furiously began selling more futures contracts, fueling a panic that took the price all the way back to the morning’s lows. With no intent to buy, the bluff worked perfectly. Jimmy told himself not one trader in fifty had the cast-iron huevos to make that bold of a move, but he figured that’s what separated the poseurs from the big dogs. And the market’s whipsaw action set him up perfectly for the next time crude touched those highs. Then, he figured, while everyone believed the market would fail again at that level, he would quietly add to his long-term bullish position, fulfilling his belief crude oil would soon surpass its all-time highs of more than $145 per barrel.

Of course, creating undue volatility in the markets wasn’t going to do any good to the bottom line for the end consumers, including the millions of fellow citizens driving the country’s roadways, but that wasn’t his concern. He certainly had no problem affording gas for his Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano, or any problem affording the Fiorano itself, for that matter. Not that he gave a good god-damn about the soccer moms in their minivans anyway. He answered to his investors, and they were mighty pleased with how they believed he increased their portfolios.

Where he made his profits that day made it even sweeter. Being from Texas, crude oil and natural gas futures were two of his favorite commodities, and he relished the notoriety of conquering those products. The size and volatile nature of both markets enabled Jimmy to place big, brash bets, trades that left his cohorts in awe. All under the age of thirty-five, ego-driven, and full of testosterone, the fifteen traders Jimmy employed strived to one day be just like him. His colleagues had their own preferred markets as well, but rarely ventured outside their specialties. Jimmy, however, traded them all. He lived and breathed every market. It was his way of making sure everyone recognized that it was his firm. And that he was the king of all things traded, women included.

When others felt uncertain of a market’s direction, Jimmy seemed to recognize discernible trends. It didn’t matter which market it involved, whether the market was moving higher, lower, or trending nowhere. Jimmy appeared to have the innate ability to calculate the next potential move. Time after time, he initiated a trade in concert with his colleagues only to exit the trade moments or days later while his partners hung on just long enough to suffer significant losses. On the other hand, just as his fellow traders exited a position in fear of losses, Jimmy confidently rode the storm for a few minutes, hours, even days longer, and reaped the rewards; rewards he made sure all the others knew about. There was never a dispute about Jimmy’s impeccable timing in everything he did.

In the middle of digits on screens flashing green and red as prices went higher or lower, amid the shouting and the fierce concentration as millions of dollars traded hands, Jimmy and the others bantered. In the office they cursed, taunted one another, and traded “fuck yous” as frequently as they traded wheat, soybeans, corn, cattle, pork bellies, gold, silver, currencies, stocks, bonds, oil, and natural gas. Jimmy valued and encouraged the creative tension. Along with his name at the head of the firm, Jimmy appropriated for himself the title of Smack-Talker Supreme. He always seemed to get the first, and often the last, demoralizing word in. He was gifted with the ability to think quickly, and his ingenious and frequent use of profanity trumped every New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut native.

As he approached Carol, he knew he was ready to twist that ingenuity to another purpose.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked her.

She looked at him coolly, ran one hand through her sleek dark hair, and studied him with blue eyes skillfully edged in black. “What makes you think I would go anywhere with you?”

“Because I know somethin’ about you.”

“Yeah? And what do you know?”

“That you are a beautiful, intelligent woman. And intelligent women know how to take advantage of opportunities that arise,” he said as he smiled his best smile, where one corner of his mouth went up and accentuated his dimple. He knew the impact that dimple had on females. Coupled with his drawl, it was damn near irresistible. Too many women before Carol had said so.

“Oh? And what ‘opportunity’ do you perceive has ‘arisen’ in this case?” she asked him pointedly.

“Dinner with me at Per Se. Surely, dinner at one of Manhattan’s finest restaurants beats the hell out of take-out. The offer only stands, by the way, until 7:30.” At that moment, it was exactly 7:15.

“And what makes you think you’re going to get a table at Per Se?”

“And what makes you think I can’t?” he said, knowing that at least two days a week he had long-standing reservations.

“You sound like . . . that guy,” Carol remarked, removing the straw from her drink and placing it between her lips.

“Tim McGraw?” Jimmy wondered, as he watched her gently bite the end of her straw.

“No . . . that Matthew guy. Matthew . . . McConaughey.”

“Well, that could be. Seein’ as how we both grew up in Texas. Do you think he’s attractive?” he asked her.

She removed the straw from her lips and stirred her drink. “Maybe,” she replied.

“Well then, darlin’. Perhaps it’s high time someone confirm your opinion of Texas men.”

And it was really that easy. Not because he said anything particularly clever, but because of the way he said it—knowing he was the best man she was likely to encounter on that, or any other night. And by 7:30, they were out the door, headed to Per Se.

Not especially a record, but still a respectable showing. Jimmy imagined to himself how he would relate this event if he were he still sharing conquests with his brothers and dad. He wondered what James Sr. would say about his progress so far with Carol. Of his three brothers, Jimmy was closest to the youngest, Carl; oftentimes the rivalry ended up Jimmy and Carl against the twins. Their father demanded from each of the boys proficiency in everything they tried. And then he made sure they tried just about everything.

Each of the Richter progeny was raised to be experts with firearms. Jimmy, with his dad’s help, fired his first shot from a small pistol at age four. Training for the boys was as extensive as the family’s cache of guns. There were at least five of every type of pistol, shotgun, and high-powered rifle: one for his dad and one for each of the four sons. The family kept well over a hundred guns under lock and key in the aptly named “Gun Room.”

By the time Jimmy was fourteen, if he and his brothers weren’t participating in target practice, they were shooting anything that moved. From squirrels to deer, snakes to antelope, all were fair game. But the one animal he especially had passion for hunting was wild boar. Considered vermin, the state allowed hogs to be hunted year-round, day or night, with no limits. Jimmy didn’t need any further invitation to pursue his preferred pastime. And hunt he did.  

Over his young lifetime, Jimmy and his brothers had slaughtered over three thousand wild hogs. It was not uncommon for them to ambush a sounder and, among the four of them, kill more than fifteen boars in a single attack. Using high-powered rifles (his favorite being the Nosler M48 TGR 2010 with a hand-lapped custom barrel—popular for hardcore big-game hunters) and coordinating their attack as precisely as a commando team, the brothers killed in volume. And since wild hogs were a major nuisance—destroying pastures, ravaging crops, and occasionally killing livestock—ranchers and private land owners gave the Richter family carte blanche to track and kill as many hogs as their hearts desired. The brothers’ abilities to systematically wipe out almost an entire sounder in one strike earned them the title “The Four Boarsmen.” Locals joked that if it weren’t for the Richter family, the boar population would have grown tenfold instead of just tripling in the past several years.

Jimmy also excelled at sports, but he pursued one particular sport with the same passion he gave to hog hunting. Within an hour of Jimmy holding a gun for the first time, he was also swinging a nine iron. Being V.I.P. members of the most exclusive country club in the area gave the Richter scions access to year-round lessons and unlimited play. In addition, James Sr. brought one, if not all of the boys, along on a myriad of outings, often traveling by private plane to meet clients for golf excursions. The clients respected the fact that the senior Richter took such personal interest in the welfare of his sons and was preparing them for a life of unlimited success. And in the future, they too would bring their sons to carry on the family traditions. Not only did the Richter boys have the opportunity to master one of the key business gateways, golf, but the clients’ loyalty became unwavering as they, too, espoused the importance of family. Of even greater significance, well before attending college the boys had established a diverse, powerful network from which to prosper.

As with firearms and golf, James Sr. introduced Jimmy to trading at an early age. Jimmy’s dad was the most successful investment manager in the Southwest. He controlled the largest brokerage accounts in West Texas, Phoenix, and the nearby cities of Albuquerque and Oklahoma City. His contacts were extensive, powerful, and loyal. One of these associates enabled Jimmy to launch the hedge fund.

The business was based on the Richter family’s guiding principles: “Just win, no matter how.” Even the hedge fund’s name, “At All Costs,” implied that losing was not an option. The firm generally used the moniker AAC. When potential investors learned of the actual name, they usually made their decision whether or not to invest right then and there. Prospective investors either became alarmed and immediately terminated any investment considerations, or the prospect said, “Those are the type of people I want managing my money.”

Jimmy liked it that way. As far as he was concerned, it immediately separated the winners from the losers. And he did not want to associate with the latter.  

AAC controlled nearly $5 billion and aggressively sought more. Their returns had been extraordinary and, while Jimmy’s greatest gains were captured in the gold and oil markets, he always considered his biggest coup to be in pork bellies. While the pork-belly market was relatively small compared to other commodities, whenever the opportunity to profit arose, Jimmy jumped in aggressively. And it was this assertiveness in the early phases of At All Costs that enabled him to nearly double the firm’s assets in the first six months of operations. Soon after that, monies from Panhandle contacts and beyond began pouring in, increasing the firm’s investment capital fourfold. Considering his passion for hog hunting, Jimmy always thought it was apropos pork bellies was his “go-to market” in trading and the cornerstone of his initial success.

At Per Se, Jimmy didn’t feel the need to be overt in outlining his assets. Carol had ridden there in the Fiorano. And women like her knew very well how to match dollar signs to men’s clothing and their cars. In addition, the familiarity with which they were greeted at Per Se spoke for him.

By the second course, he knew with certainty he would not go home alone.

Next Chapter: The Swim