Old San Francisco

I am requesting a favour. Don’t worry, this won’t hurt. Just put yourself in my Gucci loafers for a brief moment. Indulge me. That’s all I ask.

And now imagine you are attending an investor conference at a posh resort overlooking the ocean just south of Laguna Beach. Inside the enormous banquet halls there are thousands of people milling about, many of whom, you notice, are awkward-looking Asian businessmen in ill-fitting Armani, Boss, and Prada.

At the bar topless female bartenders serve unlimited cocktails. Mingling with the guests are groups of beautiful dancing girls in tight blouses and womb-gripping miniskirts. After careful analysis and some field research, you conclude that most of these young women are escorts, an observation that shocks your colleagues when you communicate it to them. But it shouldn’t. It is a well known fact that you can spot hired totty from a thousand paces. Experience has its benefits.

In one corner of the conference room sits a bored-looking tiger inside a small black iron cage. His presence at the conference, you realise, is meant to impress the Asiatic contingent. Small primitive-looking men gather around the enclosure to point and stare and snap photographs. You just hope they don’t eat him.

On the other side of the room the English pop star Billy Idol is on stage singing his greatest hits. You quietly lament the fact he ever left Generation X. Later that night after his set is long finished you have a quick bloke-to-bloke chat with him at the bar and compliment him on the early punk material. You give him your card.

Bored with the chit-chat you activate your personal GPS tracking device and target a tall older forty-something woman talking to a group of colleagues near the verandah. You notice she’s wearing a pair of classic black Christian Louboutins. She smiles at you. She’s a slim, fit, 6-ft. vision of pure candy-goodness with long blonde hair, an explosive smile, and shiny blue eyes. You learn a bit about her. She comes from an old San Francisco family, went to Stanford University, and works in investor relations in New York. Never married and no children. You establish rapport almost immediately.

Past midnight she accompanies you to her room. You nail her to the bed, sofa, wall, and expensively-tiled bathroom sink. But one thing bothers you. You notice that even during the height of the erotic shenanigans you can’t stop thinking about that bored tiger in his cage surrounded by grunting humanoids. The next morning, after tea and pastries on the balcony, while you get dressed to leave, she kisses you. You promise to stay in touch if only for networking purposes. Because, as they say, you’re a playa and that’s how you roll.

Reverse rewind to today. It is only several months later, in talking with a family friend, a Swiss real estate investor, that you learn a few additional details about your lady-friend. According to your old chum, not only does this young lady own investment properties in the area and makes several trips here every year, but she also once worked for your late father on Wall Street in the 1980s-1990s. Finally, and what is worse, she knows your WASP mother and her circle, and, in fact, inhabits the inner ring.