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exactly what they wanted: answers.
    And so the Kid, having just witnessed Timothy lose twenty-four million dollars, and worried perhaps about his own young career, about the lead-lined suit he would be forced to wear as a reputation, stood there sweating, the circles under his armpits spreading, his dark complexion strangely sallow, his knees bent, weak, and near collapse. He too wanted an answer from Timothy.
    Timothy calmly sipped his coffee. He took great care to keep his hand steady. He put down the cup, recapped it, and then refolded the wax paper over the uneaten half of his bagel.
    â€˜I have a plan,’ Timothy said, as he waited for it to arrive. ‘Here’s what we are going to do.’
    And then he laid out the plan for the Kid, who lapped it up eagerly, like a bulldog at a rain puddle, and agreed that it was a good plan, and was thankful to be given a task – any task – by a man who could still smile after losing twenty-four million dollars.

2
    The plan, if one could call it that, was simply this: double up the bet and try again.
    The yen had briefly risen to seventy-five – that is, one dollar could buy seventy-five of them – but this was an unsustainable price, Timothy explained. The yen, after all, had been falling for over three years. It had plummeted from a hundred and fifteen, down through the psychological barrier of a hundred, and then on down through ninety, through eighty, through seventy, without pause.
    Everyone agreed the yen would continue to fall until it reached fifty, its natural level. That’s why Osiris had shorted the yen at sixty-nine; that is, it had bet that it would fall even lower than sixty-nine. Osiris sold three thousand futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Which meant that when the yen fell to fifty, Osiris would make a profit of seventy-one million dollars.
    But the original wager had not exactly worked out. Almost the day after Osiris placed the trade, the yen had jumped back to seventy-five. Still, Timothy had explained to the Kid, this was not something to fear. This was typical, and moments like these separated men from boys. Indeed, this was a profit opportunity. So while everyone else was running for the exits, liquidating positions, calling in collateral, Osiris would be able to take advantage of the irrational market. It would double its bet, gambling now with six thousand contracts instead of three thousand, and would be able to make back all its losses, and then some.
    So these were the instructions Timothy gave to the Kid. He ticked them off quietly and quickly, like a general to his adjutant under the hail of cannon. First, liquidate all stock positions inorder to free up margin. Next, get Refco, Bear Stearns, Barclays, Citigroup on the line. Split the trade across four brokers. No front running.
    â€˜And one more thing,’ Timothy added.
    Jay had already turned to leave. He stopped at the door, his hand perched on the knob. He was eager to get moving, to place the trade, to start making money again.
    â€˜We can’t alarm our investors,’ Timothy said.
    The Kid removed his hand from the door. ‘Okay,’ he said. But he frowned.
    â€˜We don’t want to tell them about this setback,’ Timothy explained, ‘not yet. We need to recoup the losses first. When the yen falls back down and we’ve broken even, then we’ll tip our hand.’
    â€˜But Timothy,’ the Kid said, ‘we need to report our results. We send August statements to investors in two weeks.’
    â€˜Yes,’ Timothy said. ‘But two weeks is a long time. Practically forever. You know what can happen in two weeks? Anything. So we’ll report then. No use alarming people about details.’
    â€˜Okay,’ said Jay.
    â€˜The thing is,’ Timothy continued, ‘if our investors find out that Osiris lost twenty-four million dollars, some of them might get antsy. They might pull their money out.