The First Billion

Strangely, as chief executive of Black Jet Securities, he was unable to demand of his employees the uncompromising standards he asked of himself. He regretted the most recent firing of twenty-six of his executives and couldn't help but feel in some way responsible for their inability to generate income for the firm. So what if financing activity in the Internet sector had dried up as quickly as a summer squall? That not a single IPO had been done for an Internet play in months? Or that every other bank on the street had slashed their staffs long before?

Frustrated, Gavallan looked around his office. It was large but modest, with tan carpeting, textured ecru wallpaper, and comfortable furniture arranged to promote informal discussions with clients. A floor-to-ceiling window ran the length of the room and gave the office a stagelike feel. The plummeting vista was nothing short of spectacular, and nearing the window more than one client had professed an incipient acrophobia. A second glass wall ran along the interior corridor. When Gavallan was alone at his desk, he made every effort to keep the blinds open, as well as the door. He detested the trappings of authority and wanted everyone at Black Jet to know he was available at all times.

"Maybe you're right," he conceded. "I'm just lousy at that kind of thing. It's easier to hire a man than to kick him out on his tail."

"Oh, but if the world were a fair place," said Byrnes, bowing an imaginary violin.

"Get out of here," said Gavallan. "Come on, cut it out. You look really stupid doing that."

He knew his ideas about an employer's duty were old-fashioned, but he stuck with them nonetheless. His father had worked on the cutting line at Martinez Meats in Harlingen, Texas, for forty years. Forty years hacking the hindquarter off a flayed steer's carcass, eight hours a day, five days a week, in a fluorescent-lit factory that breathed blood and sweated ambition, where temperatures routinely soared to a hundred degrees during the six-month summer. The Martinez family might not splurge on luxuries like air-conditioning and they certainly didn't pay much. (Gus Gavallan's weekly salary of $338 came tucked in a wax-paper envelope delivered Monday mornings at nine o'clock sharp, so that the younger men wouldn't drink their paycheck over the weekend.) But neither did they fire their staff. In those forty years, Martinez Meats never let go a single man or woman except for absence, tardiness, or public inebriation, and his father's devotion to the Martinez family was nearly religious.

Black Jet had barely been in business nine years and Gavallan had already fired, let go, laid off, made redundant- however you wanted to put it- over a hundred men and women, including the latest casualties, Carroll Manzini's tech-team of banking superstars, twenty-six strong. The thought pained him. He wanted to believe that the bond between a man and his employer went beyond business to family. It was a social contract that exchanged loyalty and service for welfare and security. Maybe he was foolish. Maybe at seventeen thousand dollars a year you had a right to that kind of paternalistic relationship. At half a million bucks plus bonus you were on your own.

Byrnes laid a hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "Toughen up, kid," he said. "Look at you. Your chin's falling into your neck, your ass is dragging, and God knows you need a haircut. And that whining… Christ, you sound like a dooly crying during Hell Week. The Gavallan I knew was a rock. You didn't say a goddamn word that day up at Alamogordo. Not before, during, or after. A fuckin' rock, man."

"Easy to be a rock when you're border trash that doesn't know any better," retorted Gavallan, but already he was smiling, feeling a little better. He was remembering the day in Alamogordo. August 2, 1986. Lead-in-Fighter Training.

***

The weather had been perfect, hot and mostly clear, with only a few thunderheads to keep away from. The two of them were up in a T-38 jet trainer, Byrnes already a combat-tested pilot, the instructor, and Gavallan his student. After an hour of practicing basic fighter maneuvers, the two were heading in for landing, making plans to rendezvous at the O-club for a few beers and a steak after debrief. Then- Bam!- without warning, the jet's turbine engine had exploded, severing the hydraulic main, ripping off a chunk of the tail, and sending the plane into wild, uncontrollable gyrations at four hundred knots. One second they were flying level, the next they were pitching wildly, rolling and yawing, the burnt scrub of New Mexico changing places with the powder blue sky with sickening frequency.

Standing in his office, Gavallan jolted. Sixteen years after the fact, he could hear the whine of the disintegrating engine, the whoosh of the violated air as it battered the jet. Mostly, he recalled the adrenaline rush, the iron fingers grasping his heart and crushing it mercilessly.