Floozman: First Episode
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Table of Contents |
| Part 3: Fred’s Presentation |
“With a scandalous abundance, he brings deliverance”
Fred Looseman used to be the head risk assessor at World Wide Credit Corporation and the chairman of the Anti-Money Laundering Commission. Now he works as an automated teller machine repairman.
Sometimes he hears voices, and sometimes what he hears moves him to tears. His bank account overflows with the money of deliverance, and he becomes a financial super-hero: Floozman.
Fred is late.
As he walks across the projector’s beam to reach the desk, his burlesque silhouette makes a black hole on the screen. Pure negativity. The shadows in the room correspond, biding their time.
The director is sitting in the front row. She is waiting.
He concentrates. Mobilizing with great difficulty his refractory intellect, he recalls involuntarily the news she brought him. La Figa! His ruin. A long investigation. A small bank held by a fabulously rich family of merchants, a bank specializing in wealthy clients. An impressive artistic and financial hoard, but absolutely not in the range of trillions of billions! And yet he has seen those amounts! With his very eyes! But he prefers not to think of the events that ensued after he delivered his report.
He starts his presentation. The conventional joke, then he introduces himself: ex-Worldwide Credit Risk Director, Doctor in Law. Tired of management, he preferred to turn to strategic consulting, etc... He finally states the problem: “the vulnerability of new payment instruments.”
His talk does not proceed rapidly. He pushes onto the screen the few points he has to make, one by one: the diagrams, the examples. Supported by this impassive surface, every point, diagram and example pushes itself in turn into the spectators’ brains, in serried ranks of photons.
Some in the audience take pleasure in aligning their thoughts according to the outline presented. Others think, dream or loosen the muscles of their eyeballs in order not to give in: it’s enough to have attended the session. The young Wisdom Rock consultants watch their customers and prospects.
At the moment, Fred is putting on the screen a graph with three axes showing that risk in money laundering increases as a function of the speed of transactions and inconsistencies in the various methods of recording information. Rousing himself from his torpor, he notes that massive sums from rackets, drugs and prostitution are at stake. He points out that part of the cash flow goes through “Politically Exposed Persons,” namely the powerful.
The idea of justice glows for an instant. A wave of meaning washes over the audience and puts an end to daydreaming. Fred pauses before the next slide. Tomorrow, in another room, he will be talking about “The Macro-Economic Implications of Risk Analysis as Part of Debt Securitization.”
He concludes with the need for a global perspective and, as agreed with the Wisdom Rock Marketing Operations manager, the changes that banks and financial institutions will have to make in order to bring their processes in line with new regulations. At coffee time, in the corridors, consultants will offer their services.
At the end of the presentation, Melanie takes Fred to the bar. For a second the old consultant contemplates following them, then he turns on his heels and walks away.
In a blueish light, four smart, well-dressed young men are waiting for them.
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Copyright © 2005 by
Bertrand Cayzac
Dépôt S.A.C.D. 174 627
