Trust

Bevel wields his enormous wealth to bend the world to his will. His manipulations fall into two categories: manipulation of the stock market and manipulation of his public image. He does this in multiple realms: He manipulates the stock market to his advantage; he effectively destroys Vanner and his book Bonds, pulping all copies and erasing Vanner from the records of the New York Public Library; and he hires Partenza to fabricate his life story. More than just spinning public opinion in Bevel’s favor, these combined efforts alter reality itself, changing what’s true/disturbing people’s ability to determine truth.

Bevel gives Partenza a candid, boastful description of his job: “My job is about being right. Always. If I’m ever wrong, I must make use of all my means and resources to bend and align reality according to my mistake so that it ceases to be a mistake” (266). Right and wrong have a double meaning here. The first meaning concerns being correct or incorrect: He makes an inaccurate prediction about the market and then uses his power to reshape the market to his prediction.

Bevel frames his alignment of reality as a moral imperative: Rather than distorting, his wealth corrects reality. “Alignment” denotes correction in both the moral and economic sense, as if in aligning reality Bevel believes he’s righting a wrong.