A $50 million margin call? I'll short Wall Street.

Lu Ze answered the call. "Nathaniel."

"Lance."

Greenberg's voice came through the receiver. It was still that deep, husky quality, honed by decades of cigars and whiskey. But today, there was something more to that huskiness that Lu Ze rarely heard.

A smile.

That kind of smile that's held back at the bottom of the throat, never fully released.

"You know what, Lance?"

Greenberg spoke, his tone deliberately slow and deliberate, almost mocking.

"In just two or three days, I received about a dozen calls, all asking me the same question."

"What's the problem?"

"Do you have Lance Walker's private number?"

Lu Ze did not speak.

"A dozen or so."

Greenberg repeated the number, as if savoring its absurdity.

"There are hedge funds, investment banks, family offices, and even the CIO of a sovereign wealth fund from a small European country."

What do they want?

"They want everything. Some want to entrust their money to you. Some want to 'exchange market views' with you—oh, that's Wall Street slang, meaning they want to get the direction of the next trade out of you for free. Some just want to get to know you so they can have something to talk about at the next cocktail party."

Greenberg paused for a moment.

Lu Ze could hear a very faint liquid sound coming from the receiver—the old man was probably drinking something.

Tea, or whiskey. Considering it's 3 PM, it's most likely tea.

"I didn't give them any."

Greenberg said, "Your number is more valuable to me than that 1961 Lafite in my cellar. I don't want you to think I'm a loose-lipped old man just because I gave it to someone randomly."

Lu Ze chuckled softly.

"But one phone call is different, isn't it?" Lu Ze said.

It is not a question.

"You're starting to look more and more like me when I was young."

Greenberg chuckled softly, a very short laugh, like a stone skipping across the water before sinking.

"Yes. There's one difference."

The background noise in the receiver changed.

Greenberg moved from one room to another. Footsteps. The sound of a door closing. Then a deeper silence—the kind of silence found only in a well-insulated private study, a silence that absorbs even the sound of air moving.

"Someone wants to see you."

Greenberg's tone shifted from playful to cautious.

"From Chicago."

Chicago.

Lu Ze's fingers tightened very slightly on the table.

July 2008. Chicago. In the context of American politics, these two words at this moment point in only one direction.

Barack Obama's campaign headquarters is located in Chicago.

"Who is it?" Lu Ze asked.

"An economist named Austan Goolsby. A professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Currently—"

Greenberg deliberately paused for a beat.

"The chief economic advisor to a senator."

He didn't say the senator's name. Even on an encrypted private phone line, some names are not suitable to be spoken aloud.

"How did he find you?" Lu Ze asked, not "Who is he?"

He knew the name Goolsby. He was asking about the conduction path.

"Lance, you probably don't know,"

Greenberg's voice once again carried that subtle smile.

"I raised funds for Clinton's campaign in 1992. Not much, but enough to keep me in touch with a few old friends in the Democratic Party."

"Gorsby didn't contact me directly. He went through two intermediaries. First, a lawyer in Chicago contacted an old connection I had in Washington, and that connection then contacted me."

"Two layers of middlemen."

Lu Ze repeated it.

"Yes. They're very cautious. A presidential candidate's economic advisor secretly meeting with one of Wall Street's most controversial short sellers—if that got out, it would be a disaster for both sides. So they used two layers of security."

What do they want?

They didn't say much. But I guess—

Greenberg paused. Lu Ze could sense that the old man was choosing his words carefully.

"Lance, your open letter has caused a greater stir in Washington than it has on Wall Street."

"People on Wall Street read your letter and see trading opportunities. But people in Washington read your letter and see political ammunition."

"What you said in your letter—the failure of financial regulation, the neglect of systemic risks, the greed of Wall Street—this is not just market analysis. It's an indictment of the current administration's economic policies."

"And for a campaign team that is challenging the party to which the incumbent government belongs..."

Greenberg didn't finish his sentence.

He didn't need to finish speaking.

Lu Ze leaned back in his chair, his gaze slightly thoughtful.

Goolsby. Chicago. Obama.

politics.

"Nathaniel," Lu Ze began, his voice extremely calm.

"You recommend I go?"

"I suggest you think about it carefully."

Greenberg's tone underwent a very subtle change when he said that.

"Lance, your situation is completely different now than it was three months ago. Three months ago, you were a hedge fund manager who made a lot of money. Now you're almost becoming someone who keeps the U.S. Treasury Secretary up at night."

"When you earn a certain amount, money is no longer just money. It becomes power. And power, if you don't actively manage it, someone else will manage it for you."

"You're usually not satisfied with how others manage things."

Greenberg took a sip of something—this time it sounded like whiskey, not tea.

"You made money in Bear Stearns, and nobody bothered you. Because you were too young then, too young to warrant anyone's attention."

"You made money in oil, and people started to notice you. But you're still in the 'interesting young person' category."

"But what if, next, you earn an order of magnitude more money than before—"

Greenberg lowered his voice by half a octave.

"You'll become a target. A very large, very conspicuous target, a target that everyone wants to shoot arrows at."

"Congress will mess with you. The SEC will mess with you. The media will turn you from a 'prophet' into a 'vulture.' The public will hate you. And the current administration—if they feel your existence threatens their bailout plan—"

The old man paused for a moment.

"They have many ways to make things difficult for you. Some are legal, some are not so legal."

"At that moment, Lance, you need more than just lawyers and offshore accounts. You need friends. Friends in Washington."

"And Washington's friends are different from Wall Street's friends. Wall Street friends are bought with money. Washington's friends are made with..."

He paused again, as if he were choosing the right word.

"...exchanged based on mutual needs."

The office was silent for about five seconds.

Lu Ze did not immediately respond to Greenberg's words. He understood everything from the very first sentence the old man uttered.

He is evaluating.

It wasn't about assessing whether or not to meet Goolsby. The answer was already decided the moment Greenberg uttered "Chicago."

He was assessing something else entirely: how much Obama's team needed him at that moment, and how much he could get in return for that "need".

Late July 2008. Less than four months before the election.

The poll gap between McCain and Obama is between three and five percentage points. Not large. In the history of US presidential elections, there have been more than a few instances where this gap has been reversed in the final stretch.

Obama's strengths lie in his narrative of "change" and the enthusiasm of young voters. His weakness lies in the lack of specificity in his economic policies—the parts of his campaign platform concerning financial regulation and economic recovery were attacked by Republicans as "empty slogans."

The current Obama team has little prediction of the economic situation, and its campaign team is mainly composed of academics like Goolsby who are in charge of the economy.

Therefore, they have ample motivation to understand the economic situation through "people on the scene." And Lu Ze and Yuan Xing happen to be the most talked-about figures on Wall Street right now.

The benefits of information asymmetry in elections are enormous.

But conversely,

Lu Ze also needs Obama.

Not now. It's in the future.

Greenberg is right. Once you earn a certain amount, money ceases to be money. It becomes a target. And at that point, what protects you isn't your Swiss bank account, but the White House phone number.

"When?" Lu Ze asked.

"Goulsby has a public academic event in New York next week. Something with the University of Chicago Alumni Association. He can spare two hours before and after the event."

"Place?"

"My estate. Greenwich."

Greenberg said, "This is the safest place. There are no hotel records, no public surveillance cameras, and no third party can put both of your names in the same location at the same time."

Will you be there?

"I'll drink my whiskey in the next room."

Greenberg said, "You guys talk. If you need me, knock on the door. If you don't, pretend I'm not here."

Lu Ze thought for a moment.

"Nathaniel."

"Um?"

There's something I'd like to confirm.

"explain."

"In what capacity did Gulsby come to see me?"

The question sounded simple, but Greenberg was too old and too astute. He immediately discerned what the question was truly asking—

Did Goolsby come on behalf of Obama, or on behalf of himself?

If the representative is Obama, it means Obama himself was aware of the meeting and authorized it. This implies that Obama has included Lu Ze on his "people to win over" list. Lu Ze then has significant bargaining power.

If it were merely on his own behalf, it might simply be the personal curiosity of an economic advisor with an academic background, wanting to meet this young man who had shaken Wall Street. Such a meeting carries far less political weight.

"Good question," Greenberg said.

He paused for about two seconds.

"As far as I know—note that this information comes through two intermediaries, so you can judge its accuracy yourself—Goulsby consulted with his counterparts in Chicago before making this meeting request."

"Passed the test."

This is yet another phrase with a specific meaning in the political codebook.

It means that those above know, but haven't officially authorized it. If things go smoothly, they will admit it; if things don't go smoothly, they can deny knowing.

This is standard operating procedure for political probing.

"Understood," Lu Ze said.

Are you going or not?

Lu Ze looked out the window. In the late July afternoon in New York, the sun was still very strong.

The buildings in the distance trembled slightly in the heat, as if the city's physical structure was also beginning to deform under some unseen pressure.

"go."

"good."

The smile in Greenberg's voice returned.

"Next Wednesday, 2 PM. I'll have the housekeeper leave the door open for you."