‘You’re risking millions, you know that?’

‘I’m risking a couple of tenths of one per cent of ten billion. That’s two mill a year downside, against ten billion up. That’s not a bad deal. So make it.’

‘You got it…’

‘And my name is nowhere near this. Nowhere near it at all.’

The Penthouse Executive Club, 45th St, New York City: 18 September 2008

‘How did you do it, Mal? I mean, you told me Lehman’s would crash and burn. I thought you were totally fuckin’ nuts. And then it goes and does exactly what you said it would. So how come you were right and every other son of a bitch in this business was wrong?’

Three days had passed since Lehman Brothers Bank filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, its share price evaporating — from a high of eighty-two dollars — to just three cents in a little over a year. After a weekend of desperate negotiations involving the heads of all the major Wall Street banks, US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, UK Chancellor Alistair Darling and senior executives from Bank of America (BoA) and Barclays, both of which had shown interest in buying the stricken bank, the Chief Executive Officer of Lehman’s, Richard Fuld, and his board had been forced to admit defeat. Fuld’s reputation as one of the masters of the financial universe now lay in tatters, just like the institution for which he had been responsible. He was pleading poverty, too, but his critics weren’t convinced. They pointed to the estimated half a billion dollars Fuld had received from Lehman’s between 2000 and 2007, none of which he was asked to return.

But by betting against Lehman Brothers Malachi Zorn had done even better. He had walked away with a little over $10.7 billion.

Now he looked around the table at the Penthouse Executive Club, which he was currently sharing with his broker, Donny Trimble, two of Trimble’s hottest dealers, and the three strippers they had showered with fifty-dollar bills and the promise of unlimited Cristal.