One of the strippers, who called herself Misti, was paying her way through Columbia University Business School by giving private dances at a hundred and twenty-five bucks a time. She could make more money in one night than her more conventional waitressing girlfriends would see in a month. Now she looked at Zorn thoughtfully. If she could just keep the drunken sleazebag who had bought her company for the evening quiet for a few minutes, she might actually learn something here.

‘But what about the management of Lehman’s?’ she asked. ‘I mean, couldn’t they have done something about the situation earlier, like, before it got totally critical? And if they’d done that, wouldn’t you have lost all your premium?’

Zorn smiled, appreciating the sharp intelligence that the girl had until now kept hidden beneath her professional bimbo mask. ‘Good questions, Misti,’ he said, saying the name in a way that let her know he was well aware that both it and her persona were fake.

‘If those guys had ever been honest about their situation — starting with being honest to themselves — maybe they could have saved the business. They could have resigned their positions, allowing more responsible individuals to take over. They could have drastically controlled the risks their people were taking, and reformed their accounting practices. They could have looked for smart deals based on genuinely undervalued assets — and by the way, they’d have made and kept a lot more money that way. They could have looked for a buyer when they were still in a position to negotiate from strength. They could have done a whole lot of things, and, sure, it would have cost me a heap of dough. But you know what? They were never, ever going to do that, because they were a bunch of arrogant assholes — just like most of the guys in all the other boardrooms on the Street — and they would never, and will never, admit that they were responsible for creating this disaster.’