The Samurai Strategy Read online

  CHAPTER TWO

  "Yo, counselor. Get thy butt over here and buy me a drink."

  I was standing in the smoky entry of Martell's, on the way backdowntown from Sotheby's, when I heard the voice, a Georgia drawl knownfrom Wall Street to Washington. And sure enough, leaning against thelong mahogany bar, the usual Glenfiddich on the rocks in hand, was noneother than Bill Henderson.

  Long time, no see. I'd actually stopped by for a little ninety proofnerve medicine myself, not to pass the time with America's foremostcowboy market-player. But the idea of bringing in a Wall Street pro wasmost welcome. If anybody could dissect Noda's game, Bill was the man.

  What was I going to do? I'd stalled on giving Matsuo Noda a finalanswer, telling him I needed time to think. Then just to make sure thewhole thing hadn't been some sort of macabre hoax, I'd checked at aChase bank machine on Lex. He hadn't been kidding. A retainer had beendeposited all right, presumably by certified check, since it hadalready cleared. I was on the payroll, ready or not.

  Noda was right about one thing. What he planned to do had graveinternational consequences. The problem was, his game had just onepayoff. The way I figured it, he won if, and only if, the U.S. suddenlywent broke. As international consequences go, that seemed reasonablygrave.

  Henderson was the perfect guru to take apart the scenario. Assuming hewas sober. Tell the truth, at first glance I wasn't entirely sure. Theguy looked a mess. I assumed he was holding some sort of privatecelebration, or maybe it was a wake. What was the occasion?

  "William H., welcome back to town. Thought you'd decamped permanentlydown to D.C."

  "Packed it in. Back to start making a living again. Could be I've justset some kind of new world record for the briefest tenure ever seen onthe Council." He eased over to make room, while the jukebox began someBobby Short standard about incomparable NY. "So where's your TV startonight? Sure love that gal." He toasted Donna's memory. "If tits werebrains, she'd be a genius."

  Sexist? Tasteless? That was merely Henderson warming up.

  I hadn't actually set eyes on Bill since an ill-fated birthday dinnerDonna had thrown for him in midsummer, a favor to a producer friend ofhers at the station who'd wanted to try vamping a real livemillionaire. That evening he'd arrived with a serious head start on thewhiskey, his meditation on the concept of birthdays, and then proceededto regale those assembled with his encyclopedic repertoire of farmer's-daughter and traveling-salesman vignettes. In the aftermath, Donnaswore she'd kill him if he ever set foot in her place again. When Imade the mistake of speaking in his defense, she critiqued a few of mycharacter defects as well, then added me to the list.

  "Friend, no small thanks to you and that sordid evening, I haven't seenDonna since."

  "That was a dark moment in my history. After listening half the nightto that air-head producer she put next to me, I was in mourning for thehearts and minds of America." He revolved back to the bar. "What're youdrinking?"

  "Something serious." I pointed toward the single malt. Laphroaig neat.

  Just then Bill paused to watch as two women in bulky raincoats brushedpast. They receded toward the other end of the bar, settled their coatsacross an empty stool, and ordered drinks. One was a youngish blonde, abit nervous, having some tall, colored potion that looked as if itcould use a cut of pineapple and a plastic monkey on the glass. But theother one, brunette, was a different story. Pained eyes, with a psychicarmor that could only be called battle-weary New York. Joanna, all overagain. 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 couldwell 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'demerged from the red clay hills somewhere in north Georgia, formerfootball All-State ("I only did it for the pussy"), and ended up atYale Law--where we shared an apartment for three whole years. By thetime we'd finished our degrees, I figured I was ready to tackle reallife, but Bill had hung in and gone for a Ph.D. in economics. Althoughhis athlete's physique hadn't survived Yale--an early casualty of thesingle malt and the Dunhills--Henderson still had the delusion he wastwenty-five. Easter before last he'd arrived at my place down in theislands with some leggy print model half his age and a case of JackDaniel's Black. Did the redneck routine bamboozle the cautious heartsof his admiring ladies? Probably. Right under the radar.

  All that notwithstanding, it was a commonly accepted fact that Bill wasthe sharpest private currency-trader on the East Coast. If tomorrow thedollar was about to dive, the guy who'd already sold it short tonightfrom Hong Kong to Zurich was invariably Henderson. That part of hislife had been all over the papers the previous spring, after he gottapped for the President's Council of Economic Advisers. I guess somegenius on the White House staff--urged on by that wily senator from NewYork, our mutual friend Jack O'Donnell--concluded the Council needed apet "contrarian" on board for appearances, and Henderson looked to be asufficiently pro-business prospect. Wrong. After a couple of interviewshe was forbidden to make any more public statements. He'd failed tograsp that the national interest required fantasy forecasts just beforeelections. 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 onNoda's chilling proposition. "What are you doing here?"

  "Call it modesty and discretion." He turned back.

  These were not, as you might infer, the first descriptors that leapt tomind whenever I thought of Bill.

  "Care to expand?"

  He slid his hand across the bar, extracted another Dunhill from its redpack, and launched a disjointed monologue starting with the goddamtraffic in D.C., then proceeding to ditto coming in from LaGuardia.

  All this time his cigarette had been poised in readiness. Finally heflicked a sterling silver lighter, the old-fashioned kind, and watchedthe orange flame glisten off the mirror at our right. "So, old buddy,that's it. All the news that's fit to print. History will record thisas the moment yours truly bailed out. I figure it like this. If I can'tread the signals myself these days, what in hell am I doing givingadvice? Time to hit the silk. Get back to making a living. Don't knowhow long this circus is going to last, but I figure we'd all better besaddled up and ready to ride, just in case."

  As it happens, self-proclaimed ignorance was a crucial ingredient inHenderson's deliberate "country boy" camouflage, designed to disarm thecity slickers. I estimated the professional dirt farmer next to me,Armani double-breasted and gold Piaget timepiece, was now worth aboutforty million, including a chunk of an offshore bank. Yet for it all,he still liked to come across as though he'd just moseyed in and wishedsomebody would help him through all this fine print.

  "Don't bullshit me, Bill." I toyed with my drink. "What you're reallysaying is you couldn't get anybody else to agree with you."

  "Have to admit there were a few trifling differences of opinion aboutthe direction things are headed." He positioned his Dunhill in theashtray and washed his throat with more Scotch. "You can't cover up thefundamentals with cosmetics. Things like a megabillion trade shortfall,a debt nobody can even count, and a dollar that don't know whether tofish or cut bait. Worst of all, we're still selling the suckers of theworld more funny-colored paper than czarist Russia did. There ain't noquick fix for this one." He took another sip, then turned back. "Butfuck it. Remember that old saying I used to have about being a lover,not a fighter. I always know when it's time to call in the huntin' dogsand piss on the fire. I'm back in to
wn to stay. I got hold of my boysand they're coming in tomorrow to start getting everything out ofmothballs. We're going back on-line."

  As anybody who knew Bill was aware, he'd installed a massive computerbank in the converted "maid's quarters" of his Fifth Avenue apartment,hooked to the major futures exchanges and financial markets around theworld. Running his operation on a moment-to-moment basis were a coupleof young fireballs, his "Georgia Mafia," who did nothing but watchgreen numbers blink on a CRT screen and buy and sell all day. He andhis boys talked a language that had very little to do with English--jargon about comparing the "implied volatility" of options on thiscurrency against the "theoretical volatility" for that one, etc. On anygiven day they were placing "straddles" on yen options, "butterflyspreads" on pound sterling futures, "reverse option hedges" on deutschemarks, and on and on. Half the time, Einstein couldn't have trackedwhat they were doing. Add to that, they leveraged the whole thing withbreathtaking margins. To stay alive in Henderson's game, you had to bepart oracle, part Jimmy the Greek. You also had to have ice water inyour veins. It wasn't money to him, it was a video game where thepoints just happened to have dollar signs in front. The day I droppedin to watch, he was down two million by lunch, after which we casuallystrolled over to some shit-kicker place on Third Avenue for barbecuedribs and a beer, came back at three, and by happy-hour time he wasahead half a million. In the trade Henderson was part of the breedknown as a shooter. Up a million here, down a million there--just yourtypical day in the salt mines. A week of that and I'd have had an ulcerthe size of the San Andreas fault.

  He liked to characterize his little trading operation as "a sideline tocover the rent." I happened to know what it really paid was theincidental costs of a lot of expensive ladies. Could be Bill'sentertainment fund was in need of a transfusion.

  "Back to business?" I asked. "Like the good old days?"

  "Bright and early Monday morning. Got a strong hunch the

  Ruskies'll be in the market buying dollars to cover their Septembershorts on Australian wheat futures. Might as well bid up the greenbackand make the comrades work for their daily bread. Then round abouteleven, I figure to unwind that and go long sterling, just beforeLondon central figures out what's happening, shits a brick, and has tohit the market for a few hundred million pounds to steady the boat."

  Well, I thought, Henderson the Fearless hasn't lost his touch.

  "Bill, I want to run a small scenario by you." I sipped at my drink."Say somebody'd just told you he was taking a massive position ininterest-rate futures? What would that suggest?"

  "Tells me the man's getting nervous. If he was holding a lot ofTreasury paper, for instance, he'd probably figured rates were about tohead up and he didn't want to get creamed. See, if you're holding abond that pays, say, eight percent, and all of a sudden interest ratesscoot up to ten, the resale value of that instrument is gonna go downthe sewer. But if you've already 'sold' it using a futures contract,whoever bought that contract is the one who's got to eat the loss.You're covered."

  "I'm not talking about standard hedging." I was wondering how toapproach the specifics. "Say somebody started selling a load of bondfutures naked. Nothing underlying."

  "Well, thing about that is, the man'd be taking one hell of a risk." Heswirled the cubes in his glass. "Anybody does that's bettin' big onsomething we don't even want to think about. Some kind of panic that'dcause folks to start dumping American debt paper."

  I just stood there in silence, examining my glass. That was preciselymy reading of Matsuo Noda's move. "But I can't think of any reason whyanything like that's in the cards, can you?"

  "You tell me. It's hard to imagine. The economy's like a supertanker.Takes it a long time to turn around. But if you want a specialHenderson shit-hits-the-fan scenario, then I can give it a shot. Say,for instance, some Monday morning a bunch of those hardworking folksaround the world who've been emptying their piggy banks to finance ourdeficit suddenly up and decided they'd like their money shipped backhome. That'd create what's known as a liquidity crisis, which is afancy way of saying you don't have enough loose quarters in the cookiejar that morning to pay the milkman and the paperboy both. The FederalReserve would have to jack up interest rates fast to attract some cash.Else roll the printing presses. Or of course"--he grinned--"we could justdefault, declare bankruptcy, and tell the world to go fuck itself."

  "Nobody would possibly let it go that far, right?" I toyed with myScotch. "Particularly Japan. We owe them more money than anybody."

  "Wouldn't look for it to happen. Remember though, right now the U.S.Treasury's out there with a tin cup begging the money to cover itsinterest payments. If the national debt was on MasterCharge, they'dtake back our card. So let some of those Japanese pension funds who'reshoveling in money start getting edgy, or the dollar all of a suddenlook weak, and you could have a run on the greenback that'd make thebank lines in '29 look like Christmas Club week."

  "That's thinking the unthinkable."

  "Damned well better be. But don't ever forget, paper money is an act offaith, and we're in uncharted territory here. Never before has theworld's reserve currency, the one everybody uses to buy oil and grainand what have you, belonged to its biggest debtor nation. We're bankersfor the world and we're ass over elbow in hock. Everybody startsgettin' nervous the same day, and the bankers on this planet could beback to swapping shells and colored beads."

  "Offhand I'd say that's pretty implausible."

  "And I agree. The system got a pretty good shakeout in the OctoberMassacre of '87 and things held together, if just barely. Stockscrashed but the dollar and the debt markets weathered the storm. Nobodydumped. Japan doesn't want its prime customer to go belly up. Who elseis gonna buy all that shiny crap?"

  I studied my glass again. If Henderson, who had pulse- feelers aroundthe globe, wasn't worried, then maybe Matsuo Noda was just a nervous,spaced-out old guy. A loony-tune with an itch to gamble. Funny, though,he appeared the very essence of a coolheaded banker.

  About then, the two women across the bar waved for their check andbegan rummaging their purses. Sadly enough, the brunette had doneeverything but send over an engraved invitation for us to join them.She and I had looked each other over, and we both knew what we saw. Thewalking wounded.

  It made me pensive. More and more lately I'd begun to wonder about theroads not taken, the options that never were. What if all our lives hadstarted out differently? Where would you be? Where would I be--playinglawyer now, or maybe driving a cab? It was the kind of woolgatheringthat drove Donna Austen insane.

  It was on my mind that first afternoon I met her, when she brought hersound guy down to record some "voice-overs" to use with shots of thehouse. She made the mistake of asking for a little background, so Idecided to go way back and give her the big picture. It turned out tobe a little kinky for the six- o'clock news.

  I suited the tale by telling her about my father, once a rig foreman inthe oil patch out around Midland, Texas. I was still a kid when hestarted tinkering around weekends with drill bits out in his shop, andI was no more than about ten when he came up with a new kind of tip.Turned out it could double the life expectancy of a bit, not to mentionthe life expectancy of a lot of roughnecks who had to change them everyfew hours. He patented the thing, and next thing you knew, he was"president" of Permian Basin Petroleum.

  "Your father was a successful inventor?" She'd set her Tab down on theliving room table and perked up. Here was some "color" for her profile.

  "More than that. The man was a believing capitalist." Was she reallygoing to understand the significance of what happened? "You see, sinceno banker would risk loaning out venture capital back in those days, hehad to take PBP public. He needed money so badly he sold off sixtypercent of the company."

  "Like those entrepreneurs who created home computers in their garage?"She brushed at her carefully groomed auburn hair. Maybe here was herhook, the grabber.

  "Close. He took the money, several million, and started production. Andgues
s what? The bit he'd invented was too good. Next thing you know,another outfit that will remain nameless here came along and infringedon the patent, saying 'sue us'--which he began trying to do. But sincethey were already tooled up to manufacture, they undercut his pricesand drove PBP's stock down to zip. Then came the kill. They staged ahostile takeover and--since PBP now owned the patents, not him--axed thelawsuit. Bye, bye, company."

  "How does this story relate to what you do today?" She was checking herwatch, no longer overly engaged.

  "Well, by the time all this happened, I was off studying engineering atthe University of Texas. But when I graduated, I decided to dosomething else. I headed for Yale Law."

  "If you can't lick 'em, join 'em? Something like that, Mr. Walton?"

  "Not exactly, Ms. Austen. I wanted to find out if the Bible's right:that guys who live by the sword better be ready to die by the sword.After the sheepskin, I shopped around and found the Manhattan law firmthat handled the biggest oil-field-service outfit in the country, thenapplied to that firm's corporate department. A couple of years and alot of memos later, our oil-field client somehow got the idea theyought to go vertical, acquire their own source of equipment. Next I ransome numbers and showed them how profitable it would be to acquire acertain tool company that now owned the patent on a terrific drill bit.Of course, it would require a hostile buyout, but with a littlerestructuring they could swing it financially."

  "And?"

  "I worked nights and weekends for six months and personally devised thetakeover. By oddest coincidence, when we were through we decided tostrip all that company's overpaid executives of their 'goldenparachutes' and dump them on the street. My graduation present to theold man."

  She rolled her eyes and waved at her sound man to shut off the mike."Mr. Walton, I think our viewers would be more interested in personalstories."

  What did she want, I wondered. This was the most "personal" story Ihad.

  "What do you mean? What I eat for breakfast?"

  "I do personalities." She looked around the living room. "Are youmarried?"

  "I was."

  On came the tape. But she didn't get what she wanted. Joanna wouldn'tappreciate being critiqued on Channel Eight's evening news. And Amywould have killed me. So I just plunged ahead and finished off theother saga.

  "There's a bit more to this intimate bio. Guess I'd seen enough quickmoney in the oil business that I'd forgotten you were supposed to beimpressed by it. Or maybe I'd just never mastered the art of kissing myelders' asses convincingly. You'll find, Ms. Austen, that those are twoattitudes whose rewards are largely intangible; Wall Streetcompatibility definitely not being on the list. After five years theManagement Committee offered a partnership, but by then I'd decided togo out and try making it on my own. Be my own man."

  She waved the sound man off again. "You mean you quit?"

  "Couldn't have said it better. I hung up a shingle . . . and startedplaying the other side of the scrimmage line."

  "I understand you've been in quite a few takeover fights."

  "Let's say I've fought a lot of takeovers, Ms. Austen. There's a subtlebut important distinction."

  Donna Austen turned out to be more interested in my marital status thanin anecdotes about corporate mayhem. Thing was, beneath all that glitzI found her a challenging woman. Amy, on the other hand, despised her.But then she never likes anybody I bring home. The real problem,however, was that I kept thinking more about Joanna than I did aboutDonna. As witness this evening, when that sadder-but-wiser brunetteheaded out the door reminded me of her more than a little. . . .

  "Hate to see that young specimen depart without a good-faith offer ofcondolence." Henderson was wistfully eyeing the young blonde.Definitely his type. "Trouble is, I couldn't locate the equipmenttonight with a compass and a search warrant." He hoisted his glass,then turned back and reached for another Dunhill. "So tell me whatbrings you uptown. Never knew you to venture this far into civilizationjust to stand a drink for your oldest and wisest confidant."

  Back to reality. "William H., you will undoubtedly find this difficultto accept, but I just got asked to front some Treasury action for a newclient. Selling futures."

  "Where do you find your suckers?" He grinned. "That's never been yourgame."

  "Hey, at least I know the rules. Corporations have been known to hedgetheir debt offerings, my friend. But what I've done up to now's beenstrictly bush league compared to this."

  "So what's the play?"

  "A foreign outfit that wants low profile. And P.S., they're talkingsubstantial numbers."

  "What do you mean, 'substantial'?" Suddenly Henderson's input file wason red alert.

  "Probably wouldn't impress a high roller like you, Bill." I paused."Half a trillion dollars."

  "Jeezus." He went pale. "Who's putting up the earnest

  money for this shot? Let interest rates head the wrong way, youcouldn't cover the margin calls on a position that size with the GNP ofSouth America."

  "What if it happened to be some of our friends from across the Pacific?An outfit that calls itself Nippon, Inc." I looked at him. "Ever hearof it?"

  "Nope." He just stood there, examining his drink as though it suddenlyhad acquired an enormous insect. "But you've got a surefire knack forreally messin' up an evening."

  "I guess this is what's meant when people talk about the big time."

  "Christ Almighty. Tell you one thing, that's a hell of a number to puton the table. I'd sure like to see those boys' hand."

  "Maybe somebody's paying to see ours." I finished off my drink andsignaled for another. The more I thought about Matsuo Noda, the more Irealized I needed it. "You know, this half scares the crap out of me."

  "Matt, old buddy, do yourself a favor. Stand clear. Just back away." Hewas getting more sober by the second. "You'd be lifting up some kind ofbig rock when you don't know what's under it. I never do that. Ironcladrule. Same as I always cut losses at ten percent and never let a longposition ride over a weekend. And I'll tell you something else. Nobodylays down a bet like that unless he knows the casino's fixed." Hepaused. "I wonder if maybe we oughtn't to give Jack a call?"

  "O'Donnell?"

  "Low-key. Just touch base. Inside word is his Finance Committee's goingto be holding hearings on foreign investment, maybe in a couple ofmonths. Besides, I know for a fact he owes you a few."

  That was true. Senator Jack O'Donnell was headed for reelectionheadaches. He was America's corporate nightmare-- a former professor oflabor law at Columbia who'd gone out and bought some tailored suits,shed thirty pounds, dyed his hair, and actually gotten elected to theU.S. Senate. He was despised on Wall Street for good reason. O'Donnellwas the Grand Inquisitor of the corporate scene, hauling CEOs in frontof his committee every time he sniffed some new scam to shortchangestockholders. Since we saw eye to eye a lot, I'd made it a point tolean on a few of my clients and come up with some campaign bucks forhim, telling them it was good "insurance money." Still, if I leakedthis to Jack, I'd probably be reading it tomorrow in The WashingtonPost.

  "Henderson, I can't bring him in. Nobody's talking anything illegal.Still, I'm beginning to think I ought to keep an eye on this from theinside."

  "Matt, you haven't been listening. Let me pass along a major workingprinciple on how to keep your ass intact in this world. Write it downand tape it to your phone: Staying on the sidelines is a position too.That applies to Wall Street, and it damned sure applies to life." Hestretched for a Dunhill, then leaned back. "Ever tell you about thatfeisty 'coon hound I used to have, redtick I called by the name ofRed?"

  "Only about a hundred times." Red was his favorite sermon text.

  "Well, ol' Red somehow conceived the idea he was just about the meanestfucker in the county, and he was always out to prove it. Then one nighthe made the mistake of treeing a big old mama 'coon, up in this littlesycamore we had down by the creek. I heard him barking and raising helland I knew I wouldn't get a wink if I didn't go down and see about it."

 
; "Henderson, Christ, I've already heard this."

  "Well, I'm gonna finish it anyhow, by God. Sounds like you could use arefresher course." He took a drink. "Now then, after I made it throughthe copperheads and briers and got down there, naturally the firstthing I did was shine that tree with my light and count the eyes. Turnsout that mama raccoon had a bunch of her little ones up there too. Soshe was in a real disagreeable frame of mind. Her eyes were bright redand I could tell she was thinking she just might eat herself a smartasshound for supper. I tried to explain this to Red, call him off, and gethim to come on back up the house, but no, sirree, nothing would do buthe had to take her on. So I figured it was time he had a little realitycontact. I chunked a couple of rocks, got lucky, and down she tumbled.Next thing ol' Red knew, he thought he had his ass caught in a brand-new John Deere hay baler. I finally had to kick her off him and get herback up the tree before she really got mad."

  "Henderson, I hear you."

  "Listen up, friend. There's a moral. You see, ol' Red didn't haveenough expertise that night to know when to stand off. But I'll tellyou one thing: he learned real fast. Next time he chased thatparticular mama up that sycamore, he took one sniff and just trottedright on back to the house." He sipped again. "Every time I come acrossa tree full of something I don't know about, I remember old Red andjust turn around and walk away."

  "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 reachedfor my coat.

  "You'd damned well better."

  "Henderson, get some sleep. As a friend and colleague, I must in allhonesty advise you, you look like absolute hell."

  "I've always valued your candor." He waved for another drink. "But I'vegot 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 alittle sniffing around myself, see if I can't get a fix on what's upthe tree."

  "Okay." I was putting on my coat, checking through the window to see ifthe 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 forthe day, didn't look like he had much rest ahead that night. For all mybrave talk, I didn't either. Now that the rain was over, I wanderedover to Fifth to look at the trees sparkling in the streetlights. Andto 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 questionson the subject of Matsuo Noda. What had happened to my country thatcould make it so vulnerable to the financial shenanigans of a singlewhite-haired foreign banker? Was this what people meant when theytalked about the tides of history? Was the free ride over?

  Back when I was a kid, I'd accepted as an article of faith that Americawas the greatest, that we were destined to lead the world forever. Wasthat hubris? Now I had this sinking feeling we were about to beginlearning a little modesty. Maybe Amy didn't know it yet, but herAmerica was going to end up being a lot different from mine. All of asudden folks all over the world were about to be richer than we were.It was going to take some painful adjustment.

  That's when I finally decided. Yes, by God, I would track this one. Andwhen I figured out what Noda had up his sleeve. I'd blow the whistle.Somebody needed to stand guard over this country, and if not me, who?

  Matt Walton vs. Matsuo Noda.

  As it turned out, the evening still wasn't over. Things continued to gooff track, beginning with when I walked in my front door. I guess bynow everybody's pretty blase about urban crime, but it's still always ashock when it happens to you. I also think it's getting worse. I canremember five years ago when Joanna and I never bothered even to latchthe street windows. These days they have bars--a small precautionfollowing an evening on the town during which everything we owned withan electric cord attached walked out into the bracing Manhattan night.That was my first experience with the hollow feeling in your gut whenyou realize your sanctum has been plundered. It's not the lost toys,it's the violation that gnaws at your karma.

  This time, though, it appeared to be minor. No forcible entry. Somebodyhad actually picked the front-door lock, a fact I only established tomy satisfaction after every other possibility had been considered anddismissed. Truthfully, I probably wouldn't have noticed anything at allthat night if not for a wayward train of thought on the way home.

  I'd been meditating on a particular sword in my collection, a _katana_,which was totally without distinction except for a little oral history.Reportedly the blade once tasted blood in a rather arcane episode. Nodaprobably would have approved. The story was, the samurai who'dcommissioned it decided he liked it so much he didn't want theswordsmith telling anybody how he'd forged it. So after he'd thankedthe guy graciously, deep bows and all the rest, he picked up the sword,bowed one more time, and then hauled back and sliced him in half, cleanas a whistle. The _kesa _stroke, left collarbone straight through theright hip. It's said a samurai could do things such as that in the olddays.

  My meeting with Noda had made me want to look it over, to refresh mymemory concerning that Japanese capacity for the unexpected. So after Ilet myself in through the front foyer, I tossed my raincoat over abanister, headed down to the kitchen to pour myself a nightcap, andproceeded upstairs to the "office."

  I clicked on the light and then . . .

  Jesus! The place had been trashed. Drawers open, files

  tipped over, piles of paper askew. After the first numbing shock, thatperception-delay your senses impose before you can actually accept whatyou're seeing, I quickly started taking inventory. Okay, what did theyget this time?

  Well, the computer and printer were both intact, cordless phone wasthere still, the little nine-inch Sony in the corner was untouched. . .. Hey, could it be they hadn't actually lifted anything?

  Then I remembered why I'd come upstairs. Off to the side, under theback stair, was a big walk-in closet I called my sword room, alwayskept under lock and key. I glanced over at the door.

  Hold on. It was hanging open slightly. I strolled over and checked itmore closely. The mechanism had been jimmied, professionally, but withenough force that the metal frame around the door was askew. Not ablatant entry, but a determined one.

  My heart skipped a beat. That's why they didn't bother with TVs. Theseguys knew where the real action was, the lightweight, very expensiveloot. I opened the door, took a deep breath, and felt for the light.

  You could have heard my sigh of relief all the way out in the street.From the looks of it, nothing was missing here either.

  Be sure now. I quickly glanced down the racks, mentally cataloging thepieces. Everything had a place, and all the places were still full.Strange. This stuff was worth thousands. Burglars break in to steal. Sowhat happened? Maybe something scared them off. My sheepdog Benjamin,the fearless terror of the streets? He was now snoring at the foot ofthe stairs, but who knows . . .

  Walton, you lucky stiff, this could have been a major hit. I cursed atthe thought of having to have the door and lock repaired, made a mentalnote to remember to call the locksmith over by Sheridan Square in themorning, and pushed the damaged door closed.

  What a hell of a night. I pulled the Sotheby's catalogue out of mypocket, recalling the auction that had inaugurated this fatefulevening, and turned to chuck it in the file cabinet where I kept allthe records for my hobby: prices, news clippings, correspondence, therest.

  The cabinet, one of those cheap tin jobs you buy at discount office-supply places, was slightly askew. What's this? I yanked open the topdrawer and saw chaos.

  Uh, oh. I went down the row, checking. Tell you one thing, my intrudershad been thorough. Every drawer was a mess, just like the office. ThenI got to the bottom, the one with backup data on the collection.Appraisals, provenance of the pieces, that kind of thing.

  It was empty.

  But of course! Any pr
o would know that half the value of a collectionsuch as this would be in all the documentation. Which meant mymethodical thieves were no dummies; they'd started with the paperwork,the valuations and authenticity info . . . which meant they weren'tthrough. I must have interrupted their . . .

  My God! They could still be here.

  I edged for the phone and punched 911, the police emergency number.Next I went back and pulled down a sword, just for protection, andswept the empty house. It was all nice and tidy.

  Finally New York's men in blue showed, an overweight Irishman and hisPuerto Rican partner, both with mustaches. I actually knew them, havingonce received a ticket for walking Ben off the leash. We went throughthe formalities, lots of questions with no answers worth writing down,and then they offered to send around a fingerprint squad in themorning. Sure, why not. And you'd better get new locks for this place,Mr. . . . Walton. Right. We all thanked each other and I saw them out.

  Then I headed back down to the kitchen. What was this all about?Stealing files? Papers? Those documents, lovingly and painstakinglyassembled, were what made the swords somehow uniquely a part of mylife. Something that actually wasn't going to decide to take a hike thenext week. The stuff had no value to anybody except Matt Walton.

  Or so I thought.