Page 45 of The Oligarch's Daughter

“And what makes you think the price of vanilla beans is going to go up?”

“Bad weather coming in Madagascar, which produces eighty percent of the world’s supply of vanilla.”

“If you know that, so does everyone else on the Street. Right?”

Maybe, Paul thought. But not everyone’s thinking about vanilla beans. Too small a market. The more he thought about it, the better he liked his idea.

*

He next went to Bernie Kovan’s office. Bernie was stalking around the room with Bluetooth earbuds in, talking on the phone. He held his index finger up in the air, telling Paul to wait a moment. Paul settled into one of the visitor chairs in front of Bernie’s messy desk.

Bernie Kovan spent a lot of money on his suits, got them tailored on Savile Row, in London, but somehow, on him, they looked like cheap knockoffs. He wore frayed Lands’ End button-down shirts and unfashionably wide ties. He hadn’t gotten the memo about shoes, either: he wore wide-toed Clarks Wallabees with his fine suits. He claimed they were much more comfortable than bespoke leather dress shoes.

Finally, Bernie ended his call, turned to Paul. “What’s up?” Bernie liked Paul just on general principles, but he particularly valued him because of how he’d saved his ass on the Cavalier deal.

“I have a plan I want to run by you.”

“Go.”

Paul started explaining his idea about vanilla beans.

When he’d finished, Bernie laughed. He leaned back in his chair, looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds. “This is a total crapshoot, you know.”

“Maybe.”

“Fifty million bucks is bupkis for this guy.”

“I know, but it’s what I have to work with.”

“If you double his money, will he invest with us? I mean, serious money?”

“He didn’t say so, but it does feel like I’m being auditioned here.”

“Huh.” Bernie looked off into the distance. “Well, let’s kick the tires a little bit . . . So you want to buy put options on companies that buy a lot of vanilla, thatdependon vanilla. Beatrice Cade and Nelson-Holcroft and Nestlé. Figuring that when the price of vanilla shoots up, their stock will take a hit.” By “put options,” Bernie meant buying the right to sell the stock at a certain price by a certain time. If the share price goes down and you have the right to sell its stock at a higher price, you can make serious money.

Paul nodded. “Vanilla goes into a whole bunch of Nestlé products. If they can’t get vanilla, all those products are delayed, maybe even for several quarters. That definitely tanks their stock. Or they switch to artificial vanilla flavoring, which is different, and word gets out and they still take a hit.”

“Well, at least you’re spreading the risk around. Okay. But won’t you need boots on the ground in Madagascar to make this work?”

“Probably,” Paul said. “I’ll go myself.”

“That’s just not going to happen. You’re too valuable here. Send an associate and an analyst. Send Chris and John.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Not at all. Why not? Chris speaks French, and you’ll want a French speaker.”

Chris Langley was an associate at the firm. He’d gone to Exeter; done a school year abroad in France, where he became fluent in French; and then graduated from Stanford Phi Beta Kappa, where he’d played football. He was twenty-seven and just out of the Harvard Business School. John Kapinos was twenty-three and a summa cum laude graduate of Williams College, a newly hired analyst.

Bernie continued: “They’ll both enjoy the trip. It’ll be an adventure. But I’ll tell you something. I don’t want them walking around Madagascar with five million dollars in cash without any security. Call Smith Brandon or Kroll and ask them to send a couple of French-speaking ex–Special Forces brutes to accompany them.”

“That’ll cut into our profit—”

“I don’t care,” Bernie insisted. “Theyhaveto have security. That’s nonnegotiable.”

“Got it.”

“Spend a couple hundred grand to protect five million in cash? Worth it. But are they going to know how the vanilla bean market over there works?”

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