The cake. Beautiful chocolate, dense, they packed and shipped it, they do it every day. He’ll be longing for Vienna on his cold Russian mornings. Opening up that new branch, learning what bribery is when properly institutionalized.

Monetti is our biggest wild card, can’t figure out what he is doing. I believe he is still the way in, but it’s a torturous route to god knows where. How does he get from here to the many there’s he seems to simultaneously inhabit?

You can’t imagine what it’s been like out here. Had your associate over here last week, checking into the airport hotel in Amsterdam and catching three hours sleep, then trundling out to Utrecht to meet some latter-day slide-rule junkie whom your close friend Rudi had palmed us off on. Telling us all the wonderful things he is doing with data. Last thing he wants is to have to explain his data next to everyone else’s.

Then over to London, a German banker there, pink shaved head, heavily muscled neck. Flashes of a Cray brother. Rare bird, I suppose, genus goon, species economista. Brought us in through a back door, last meeting of the day after several cordial, if not useful sessions. Dark time of day suddenly.

Our partner’s unctuous sales guy with us, always thinking about his last and next meal. We set up, got a demonstration of the rotating cube played across the screenless wall like a blue-movie at an old-fashioned smoker. The associate going through his spiel, like a good vendor; meanwhile the German banker/gangster, bangster?, stares at him, smiling and nodding his head, edging in and out of his threatening stance. His other boys had filed into the room and played their negative roles.

“Don’t see the value . . can’t you show . . . comparative counterparty ratings . . .”

Mr. roly-poly salesman dropped a name, a modestly-officed gent in a rumpled building off Cannon Street, an alleged supporter of ours.

“This,” the bald head swiveling to each in turn, “goes through me. I don’t want to hear about this coming in through some other door.”

We disconnected our cables, accepted the late coffee brought in by an Adele or Agatha. Your friend clumsily tore open a sugar packet, spilling crystals across the table. A perfect ending, let them deal with the ants.

But the cake, right, that was the event of the week. How do you think our Italian friend felt, back in his drafty, cold, Russian bank office, opening the box to find a Viennese chocolate cake, only the best in the city? Bet he called all his friends back in Milan to let them know.

You remember when we met Monetti, right, he was there in that crowded little conference room in Milan, trolley cars clattering outside. The elevator with the metal accordion door and ominous lurching, a terrifying trip each time. He kept leaving the room for a smoke. What a trip that was, couldn’t even stay at the Enterprise, booked solid at twice the rack rate – effing shoe fair. Trained up just over the Swiss border, a hotel out of season, a chilly evening walk by the water.

The esteemed Dr. Veit was with us that day, staying quiet in the back of the meeting room, a reminder to the peons of his regular lunches with the board members. Jotting down notes in his little book, planning the Habsburg birthday party while playing the ceremonial role for which we pay him so handsomely. With his little attaché case, never see him with anything except that, he has his shirts and change of whatever in there.

An Italian story, as ever.

From London back to Italia, and the next morning, I called my tailor up, I do whenever I’m in Milan, even if I don’t have an order in. It’s “Mr. Hackett!!”. Then down by the shop, and there are shirts, forgot when that fitting took place, no matter, there is always something in the hopper. Signor Talone, he’s a good-a friend of Narducci, the CEO of A, been making his shirts and suits for years.

“I a-tell him, he a-see you, good friend, bene.”

So did we see Narducci? Did Mr. Hackett get a call from Signor Narducci’s secretary that afternoon, beautiful even over the phone, could I come tomorrow at 10? So in the office, or rather the coffee bar/lounge that served as his waiting room, a perfect espresso brought out by the lovely Isabella. Then at 10:30, ushered in. Narducci, formal and friendly, his desk clean except for my letter. Who is sitting there but Niccolo?

You know Niccolo, used to work for A bank, now he is with B bank, but he is cozy with all the A and B bankers, and Enrico, who used to work for him at A, now has his old job, will be a nervy jumping mess if he gets wind that Niccolo thinks this is a good idea, which of course he will.

They think maybe they’ll start in Poland, or Hungary, somewhere there isn’t so much to dismantle, do we know Monetti, he’s been running from country to country, started with the Balkans, figuring out what they got when they bought that failing institution. Now he’s in Moscow, but don’t think we want to start there.

This is the big system switch-out, the summum bonum, what have you, you’ll need to update your email tag, Managing Director of Global Operations, and no more of those cheap suits, you need to get down to Boyd’s, a few well-tailored Trussini or the like, and proper shoes please.

Monetti, perfect, our old friend, was a partner with more than one of the global firms, bouncing around in credit risk, used to take coffee with us in Vienna, always with the chocolate cake.

So what an item to drop on Enrico, in from Torino, when we had lunch later that afternoon, he’s a vegetarian, doesn’t stand upright until noon when the sun brings him around. Now Monetti and Niccolo lined up, my god, he was dithering then, the lunch was a half hour longer, his hands fluttering, what should he do, wait for the word from Monetti? Yes, early days, Mr. Enrico, just wait, we’ll be talking to Monetti soon, and why not come by tomorrow at the Enterprise for a drink with Niccolo?

Then, Christ, I had forgotten, we had dinner with Marek the same night, the project with Bank B., minor effort, but critical nonetheless, and we don’t want Marek getting distracted by Niccolo etc., so deputized your associate to take him into the restaurant for a nice osso bucco and Barolo.

Waiting in the lobby bar, everything dark, black and orange, the corridor floors so clean, with a pleasant faint whiff of ammonia, the models gathering for a gallery event, Niccolo comes in with his motorcycle jacket and helmet, takes them off and his suit drapes down, cut perfectly, not a hair out of place.

Niccolo thinks, yes, a call to Monetti will be fine, a little hard to track down. He forwarded me a number from his mobile, on to gossip of the management ranks at A and B banks, players shifting across and up and down, monitors from the Bank of Italy tracking them all like the cozy co-conspirators they really are. Niccolo eased out as the gallery event dispersed, weaving through the flock of startling beauties released from their service to the art world.

On to Marek, your close personal friend, he asks where you are? We tried to buzz you, no, right, we did get you, could you get a word of what he said? He’s getting restless in Milan, looking for a new post – may go back to Poland with his old friend Pieter, the startup bank he has going to, or more likely to Germany, a data warehousing position opening up. What is he doing, I think, he’s living with a rent subsidy in Como, down the street from Clooney, I know the Italian offices are a non-stop opera, but he’ll find it’s another tune in Munich, everything on schedule, every meeting with a proper agenda, no into the office at 9:30, out for cappuccino at 10, etc.

Got him to his train, back home to wife and kids. In the morning, took the train the same route up to Zurich and began to track down Monetti. The number had a German country code, but no answer. I went back to la bella Isabella and she searched through the company directories, the number Niccolo gave me did not exist, and Monetti is listed twice, once in Moscow, the other in Torino. Wouldn’t that make Enrico happy? I try the Torino number and it is out of service. Isabella checks and finds that office has been closed, and we know that the Moscow office has not opened yet. She comes back with another number, it’s some temporary digs he has in Brussels, not even a bank office, why there? Who knows, maybe lobbying the EU, or a deal with one of the bereft institutions up for grabs since the crisis.

I couldn’t get through for five days, board meetings weekly for three weeks, believe me they’re not figuring out how to cover our scrawny retainer.

Finally get him on the line and very difficult to determine exactly what he is doing, but he agrees that I should look him up when in Brussels, which I fit in as a way station on my trundle up to the Nordics. You stayed in that hotel we use there, good location but outrageous, never get the breakfast, it’s thirty euros, go to the arcade, the cafes are excellent. Met Monetti for dinner at one of the fish restaurants and he was crying through the meal about getting posted out to Moscow, even more of a mess there, no systems, no information, all the staff speaking Russian, of course, little English, forget Italian, remember he had spent all that time in Vienna, his morning coffee and cakes, reading the newspapers in the brown-hued shops. He will miss it so.

Not sure where from here, but it’s follow the cake, I believe. You’ll learn more from the meditation of an Italian banker over a Viennese cake in an East Europe bolthole. You might get called before an EU finance subcommittee, what a lark. God knows which business card you’ll get, one for each of his offices, including the one that does not exist, so explain that to me, how does it happen, there are rooms, phones, desks, a gorgeous Czech secretary on display in the ante-room, no official status, set up shop and entertain.

Got to power down now, hours of bog-swabbing ahead of me. Why and what is this life, I ask you, what will we think doddering in our dotage, telling who will hear about ordering that cake sitting in a crumbling rail station between Zurich and Milan . . . like some cock-eyed Scotsman’s tale, don’t know whether he’s working to cadge a fiver or just trying to make contact with some soul in the universe.

First published in Ambit 209