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

He reopened his laptop and switched to another video. This wasn't a talk show; it was a roundtable discussion at an academic conference. The video quality was noticeably worse, as if it had been filmed with a fixed camera.

"In the fall of 2007, two hedge funds under Bear Stearns had just gone bankrupt. Someone asked him whether the subprime mortgage crisis would develop into a systemic risk."

Lu Ze pressed play. Goolsby began speaking eloquently on screen—the subprime mortgage crisis was limited in scale, losses could be absorbed, and the key was regulatory reform and consumer protection. His words flowed smoothly, his logic was rigorous, and his data was accurate.

Then he said one word: "Controllable."

Lu Ze paused the video.

He used the word 'controllable' twice.

Isabella remained silent, waiting for him to continue.

Lu Ze switched to another segment. A debate on CNBC. Goolsby was debating with a conservative commentator. The two were arguing about the severity of the crisis. Goolsby had the upper hand, overwhelming his opponent with data and rhetoric.

Then the commentator on the other end suddenly steered the conversation to the layered structure and credit enhancement mechanism of CDOs.

Lu Ze did not pause the video, but instead tapped the screen with his finger on the location of Gulsby's eyes.

"Look at his eyes. Here."

Isabella moved a little closer.

The shift was fleeting, perhaps less than half a second. A switch flashed in Goolsby's eyes—from "I'm in control of this debate" to "I need to dodge this issue." The next instant, he dodged it, using a graceful transition to steer the conversation back to the regulatory framework. It was almost perfectly smooth.

"You wouldn't notice this unless you looked at it repeatedly," Lu Ze said.

"He doesn't understand the microstructure of CDOs," Isabella said.

"He understands macroeconomics. He understands it very well. But 'a whole complex set of securitized products'—his own words—is a whole in his language. He's never unpacked that box. The cross-counter risk of CDS, the gamma exposure of synthetic CDOs, the cascading default clauses of ISDA agreements, the collateral discount rate of overnight repurchase agreements—these gears and pipes aren't on his knowledge map."

Lu Ze closed his laptop.

"It's not because he's not smart enough. It's because these things don't fall under the scope of macroeconomics. He's looking at the building from above ground. The pipes are underground; there's no reason he'd ever been to the basement."

Isabella thought for a moment.

"So when you met him, you planned to take him to the basement."

"He came to me most likely because he's starting to realize that what's happening on the ground can't explain what's going on. Look at the change in his wording in his recent public statements—from 'the economy needs reform' to incorporating more statements about the financial system and risk contagion. He's trying to understand things that his academic training didn't cover."

"And you just happened to have lived in the basement for six months."

Lu Ze looked at her and smiled. Not a slight twitch of the lips. It was a brief, genuine smile, tinged with a hint of self-deprecation.

"almost."

Isabella picked up her now-cold coffee and thought for a moment.

"You think Obama will win."

This wasn't a question. She was confirming a judgment that could already be deduced from Lu Ze's behavior—that he chose to contact Obama's people rather than McCain's.

"Over the past 60 years, the ruling party that has run for re-election during an economic recession has had a success rate of less than 30%," Lu Ze said.

This is a way of answering with data. Isabella noticed.

Then he said one more thing.

"And the economy is not expected to improve in the next few months."

This statement carries far more weight than the previous one. The previous statement was based on historical statistics. This statement is his own judgment—a judgment that has been validated twice, in the cases of Bear Stearns and oil.

Isabella finished her cold coffee and put the cup down.

"Is there anything you need me to prepare?"

"No need. I'll go alone on Saturday. You won't be anywhere related to this."

"clear."

Isabella stood up and picked up her tablet. She paused as she walked to the door.

Isabella stood up and picked up her tablet. She paused as she walked to the door.

"Boss."

"Um."

"You spent an entire night preparing for your meeting with Blankfein. You spent most of the day preparing for your meeting with Greenberg."

She glanced at the open black notebook next to Lu Ze's desk, which contained more than half a page of handwritten notes. The Bloomberg terminal hadn't been touched all afternoon. The coffee she'd brought in, however, was finished.

"How long did this person watch the video?"

"Today, it will take four or five hours," Lu Ze said, his tone revealing no intention to hide anything.

"Four or five hours," Isabella repeated. "You even laughed. I heard it when I came in."

"He's really interesting."

Do you find Blankfein interesting?

"Blankfin is shrewd."

"What about Greenberg?"

"Greenberg is very experienced."

"So this person is different from them."

Lu Ze leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment.

"Blancfein and Greenberg, I know what they want, and they know what I want. The purpose of the meeting was clear from the start. Sit down, exchange chips, stand up and leave. Very efficient."

He paused for a moment.

"But Goolsby isn't a Wall Street guy. He's an academic, and a politician with a left brain. You can't walk in to him with a task list and talk about terms. You have to make him feel that talking to you is worthwhile in itself. Not because you have something he needs, but because you are someone he's willing to spend his time with."

"You're convincing him to like you," Isabella said.

"I'm trying to convince him that I'm someone he can keep in touch with long-term."

Lu Ze corrected her wording, "Liking is an emotion. I need a judgment."

Isabella looked at him.

She wanted to say something, but didn't. She kept that sentence in her mind.

She walked out of the office and gently closed the door.

The corridor was quiet. Most of the people in the trading room had already left. Only Matt remained sitting at his workstation, the blue light from the screen illuminating his face.

Isabella didn't immediately return to her seat. She stood in the hallway for a few seconds.

The thought she hadn't voiced earlier was now very clear in her mind.

Lu Ze spent four or five hours studying a person's sense of humor, expression habits, and stress response patterns. It wasn't to find weaknesses—if that were the goal, watching two debate videos would have been enough.

He spent so much time so that when he sat across from Goolsby on Saturday, he could speak at a pace that made Goolsby feel comfortable, stop where Goolsby found interesting, and deliver information into Goolsby's blind spots without offending him.

He was making extremely unnatural and meticulous preparations for a conversation that would make the other person feel natural.

The four or five hours of preparation were for what would appear to be two hours of impromptu conversation between two intelligent people on Saturday.

At Blankfein’s estate, he spoke in the Brooklyn-style directness that the other person preferred.

In Greenberg's study, he spoke in a language that the old hunter could understand about "holding on" and "hesitating."

When faced with Fuld's outburst at the Metropolitan Banquet, he countered with an Egyptian sarcophagus—not a spur-of-the-moment idea, but an impromptu weapon that only someone with an extreme sensitivity to the situation could grasp.

Each time, he displayed what seemed like his own natural reaction.

But if every "natural response" happens to be the most acceptable way of communicating for the other party—is it still natural?

Isabella had learned a concept called "impression management" in her organizational behavior class at Wharton. The professor said that all social interactions are essentially performances.

But what the professor didn't teach was that when someone performs with such precision, to the point that they spend four or five hours studying the other person's jokes, the line between "performance" and "reality" becomes very blurred.

Lu Ze found Goorsby "interesting." That's true.

He was amused by that clip from The Daily Show. And that's true.

But was the judgment of "interesting" itself part of his calculations? Did he first find Goolsby interesting and then decide to take the relationship seriously? Or did he first decide that the relationship was worth investing in and then allow himself to discover Goolsby's interesting aspects?

If even "finding someone interesting" can be part of a strategy—

Isabella didn't continue thinking about it. Because she realized that if she followed this line of thought, she would begin to question everything Lu Ze had shown her over the past few months—every instance of approval, every instance of trust, every instance of that tacit understanding in the office late at night that seemed to transcend the relationship between boss and subordinate.

Are those true?

Or is it also within the calculation?

She decided to stop thinking about it.

Moreover—she admitted to herself—even if all those things were calculated, she could hardly help but admire the precision of that calculation.