Big Deal Read online

  “That was pretty brave of you.” I look back.

  “Was it?”

  He shrugs, sliding long legs down off the metal plinth of the sculpture and walking across the floor towards me. “Well, Barbara gives that speech to all the trainees. Every intake. And it scares the crap out of them. Every intake. I haven’t seen anyone interrupt her before.” He’s obviously one of the bond salesmen in a suit like that; all polish and flash, whose job it is to entertain clients, get them nodding their heads and handing over their money. “It was interesting to watch.” He seems obviously enjoying the scene, and I feel a flash of irritation. It’s fine for you, buddy.

  “Interesting? What’s interesting about picking on people when they don’t know what the rules are, hey?” He smiles and nods, conceding the point.

  “Fair enough. Barbara usually makes an example of one of the trainees so the others don’t act up. But, you’re right; it can’t be much fun if you’re that one person. Veronica, isn’t it?” I shake my head.

  “It’s Ronnie. Not Veronica.” I hate being called Veronica.

  Deep green eyes fix me briefly, calculating. “Okay, Ronnie it is then. I admire your conviction, but you’re going to have to learn to pick your battles if you want to play this game. You need to survey the landscape before you go wading into a fight.”

  I open my mouth to say something cutting, then decide to take his advice, and close it again. “Uh-huh.” I look at him evenly for a moment, studying his face. Is that enough surveying for you, Mr. Hot Salesman?

  Suddenly, he breaks into a smile. “Very good! You’re a fast learner. However, right now, you,” he indicates the door to the conference room, “should be in there with the other trainees.” I start. Shit, he’s right. Being late at this stage wouldn’t be smart. Walking up the steps behind him, I have just enough time to admire his figure in that suit—damn, that is a nice suit, and a nice ass underneath it—before he turns suddenly.

  Did he catch me looking at his, ermm…suit? If he did, he doesn’t show it. We get to the conference door, and he opens it for me. In the moment before I step through it, those green eyes catch me again, and I get a flash of the faintly amused smile, like nothing is ever very serious for him.

  “See you in the game, Ronnie Haas.”

  2

  I look at the dollar bill in my hand, studying the serial number. The bill is old and a bit crinkled, George Washington’s face smiling benignly at me as I concentrate.

  In front of me, the lights of the computers on the trading floor blink incessantly, flashing prices and contract data across the world.

  Help me out here, Georgie-boy; what have they got on their bills, huh? I’ve got a reputation to keep up here; Tom Macaulay never loses at Liar’s Poker.

  “Four 7s.”

  Next to me, Mike breaks my concentration with a bark of laughter. “I’ve got you this time, man. Challenge; you’ve got to be wrong. Ain’t no way there are four sevens round here.”

  I look up. “Anyone else feeling brave, people? C’mon, don’t be shy - like the man says, I’ve got to be wrong.” I pause for a second. “Don’t I?” I let the words hang in the air, and wait.

  There’s a hiss of indrawn breath from across the circle of people. Billy Flynn squares his shoulders and looks straight at me. “Challenge.”

  That breaks the spell.

  “Challenge.”

  “Challenge.”

  “El Challengo, Señor Tom.”

  Fine, then. It’s your money.

  I turn my bill over. “Let’s add ‘em up! Mike, how many sevens you got on that nice shiny bill of yours?”

  He smiles back. “Not a one, buddy.”

  “Nope, me neither.”

  “Me neither.”

  “I got one. Boss, it is my professional duty to inform you that this time you have screwed yourself, and you owe us all ten thousand bucks each.”

  I put on my best innocent face, and turn my bill over. “Well, Billy, that would be the case, if I didn’t have this bill here, with these here three sevens on the serial number. So, unless I’m mistaken, that means you each owe me ten thousand pictures of our great and noble first president. Although I will accept payment in larger bills, tubs of guacamole, or Berkshire Hathaway stock. I’m good like that.”

  The chorus of profanity that rises from the assembled team is music to my ears. Bushy eyebrows knitted, Mike folds his dollar bill into a small paper wad. “Liar’s Poker is a stupid Goddamned game, Tom. I don’t know why the hell we play it with you.”

  “Michael Mason,” —he hates it when I use his full name— “do not think of this as losing ten grand. Think of it as gaining knowledge, which, ultimately, is the most precious thing in the world.”

  “Yeah, right.” Mike scowls theatrically at me. “Hey, boss, I’ve got an idea—why don’t you use your winnings to take your girl to Paris for the weekend? Oh, that’s right, waitaminnit—you don’t HAVE a girl because you’re too damn busy making money. And fleecing your innocent employees.”

  I smile beatifically and ignore both of these insults. “Defacing currency is illegal, Mike. Should you really be doing that with that bill? I don’t want to have to report one of my own team to the SEC.”

  He flicks the wadded-up bill at me. “Boss, shut the hell up. You are an awful human being, and if you weren’t the best—” Behind him, the huge screen displaying asset prices lights up like a Christmas tree, and Mike’s next words are lost in a rush of noise from the other people on the floor. A video stream of a reporter’s face appears on the screen, huge, dwarfing the stream of numbers and blinking red-and-green arrows. Someone finds the volume control, and the room fills with her voice.

  “It’s just been announced that Walters Capital has pulled off another coup; in what some are calling the young firm’s most audacious move yet, more than forty million dollars was made in a matter of sixty minutes just this morning. Analysts say that Walters’ uncanny ability to take contrary positions and keep its rivals guessing is the work of one man; Tom Macaulay, a former college professor turned financial wizard whose team has repeatedly stunned the market over the past six months. Macaulay’s rise to prominence began when—”

  Unfortunately, at this point, the reporter’s face is replaced with a still picture of my own. The crowd in front of me whoops and cheers, while I wince. I might be vain, but not even I like looking at a twelve-foot-high picture of my own mug for very long. Billy pumps his fist, and shouts, loud enough to drown out even the video feed.

  “TOM! TOM! TOM! TOM!” The chant gets picked up by the crowd, turning to face me with grins on their faces. It continues until I hold up my arms.

  “Yeah, okay, shuddup. You assholes seem to forget this is a place of business, not a college football game. Now you’ve gotten this out of your system, let’s all of us get back to work. Please resume your seats and get busy with the differential equations, alright?” Amid a chorus of good-natured grumbling, my team wander back to their seats and sit down one by one. After a few minutes, Mike swivels his chair to face me.

  “Tom, that really was an impressive trade you pulled off. It’s no surprise the financial sites have been hassling us for interviews extra-bad this week. I don’t know why you keep refusing them.”

  “Mike, it wasn’t me that pulled it off—it was us. The team. I’m not going to go on television and take all the credit for something that we all did together, man. You know I’m as cocky as anyone else in this game, but I won’t support the story that what we’re doing is just about me, and not anyone else.”

  He shakes his head. “Man, you know the media wants this whole lone-financial-genius story, right? Ever since the crisis, all this ‘big data’ crap, people are confused, they’re scared. They want someone to show they can master all of this,” he waves a hand at the screen behind him, “someone who can reassure them that human beings are still on top. They want a Mess—”

  I interrupt. “Mason, if you call me a financial Messiah, I will
roll this chair over there and punch you in the head, I swear to God I will. And then I will fire you. Now, talk to me about something more important: what are we going to do now? You know that trick won’t work twice; that was a one-off deal, and it paid well, but the next time we try it, people are going to see us coming.”

  Billy looks up from his desk, and turns around. “Tom’s right. From now on, every time we do something, all the other firms are going to be watching us. The more characteristic it is, the more they’ll see it coming, and the more they’ll kill us.” He makes a face. “The problem with being on top is that everyone is trying to pull you down.”

  I stand up and spread my arms, feeling stiffness in my shoulders. Writing notes and typing on a keyboard aren’t very good for you, and I haven’t had time to get to the gym this week. “Gentlemen, if we want to keep winning this game, we need some new ideas. Make me a list of what you’ve got knocking around in those highly-qualified skulls of yours, and let’s meet tomorrow to talk about it. In the meantime, I need to stretch my legs.”

  “Did you see the new trainees this morning when you came in? Fresh meat.” Billy makes a Pac-Man hand gesture. “Soon, they’ll be gobbled up by the Walters machine, just like us.”

  “Huh. Barbara will knock ‘em into shape soon enough. I watched her give her speech again this very morning. It had the usual effect on them.” Except for that one girl. What was her name?

  “Barbara will scare the bejeezus out of them, you mean. That lady frightens me, and I work here. If I were a fresh-faced college grad, I’d wet my pants every time she looked at me. It’s like she knows you’ve done something wrong, and it’s only a matter of time before she finds out what it is.”

  “Well, in your case, she’d be right. You have done something wrong, and I sure as hell don’t want to know what it is. But she’s not as severe as you make her out to be.”

  “Whatever you say, boss. Enjoy your walk.”

  3

  On my way back from the huge glass expanse of the foyer, I stop by my mailbox to pick up the trainee resumes. I’d rather not have to babysit a bunch of fresh-faced college graduates while we’re trying to come up with new strategies, but we need to do something with them. They’re a huge pile, stuffed into my mailbox, and I briefly wish that colleges would encourage their graduates to follow the old rule for resumes: one page, plus one extra page for each Nobel prize awarded.

  Do I really have to read all this? I know that we’re meant to be constantly recruiting, but I joined Walters Capital to play the game, not to play host to a bunch of grasping neo-entrepreneurs who watched one too many seasons of ‘The Apprentice.’

  In the meantime, I need to come up with something new, something clever, and right now, I’ve run dry. Mike’s comment about not having a girl comes back to me, and I shake my head. I want my team to stay right where we are—at the top of the world—and that doesn’t leave much time for anything else. My work is everything, and where would I find a girl who understands that?

  The pile of papers is just big enough to hold with one hand, and I set off down the corridor toward my office. I don’t use it very often, because I’d rather be on the floor with my team, but it’s good to have a place to read now and again. As I get there, I notice a kid sitting on one of the chairs across the corridor. He doesn’t look like he belongs to anybody obvious, scuffing his shoes on the floor, and looking idly at the paintings. Maybe one of the secretaries? Hard to say.

  I unlock my door, collapse into my chair, and settle in to look at resumes. There’s the Haas girl, Ronnie, right? Cute name. She was top of Data Science from Lowell College, so she’s damn smart, and according to her resume she’s got just the right kind of research experience.

  I think about seeing her in the foyer, long legs set off by that tailored dress, all the way down to those expensive shoes. As I reached past her to open the door, her head turned and I got a glimpse of fine, sharp features and red lips. Unexpectedly, I wonder what it would be like to kiss those lips. Shit. Focus, man. I shake my head. Where was I? Right.

  I put a question mark on her resume, and start sorting through the rest of the pile.

  After forty minutes, my vision is blurring, and I’ve had enough prizes, awards and valedictorians to last me a month. Why do they all have to be such overachievers? This is a competitive field, I know, but these graduates are all the same; finance, business, MBAs, the whole thing. These are the people all our competitors have in their teams—and they can pay more, because they’re bigger. These people are the same thing everyone has—we need something new, and I’m not seeing it here. We need people who are different, people who don’t fit in in a normal firm.

  Outside, through the glass partition, I can see the kid is still there. Someone has evidently taken pity on him, and found him a pad and some paper, and he’s writing on it.

  A dim memory comes to me; twenty-five years ago, in Dad’s office, making up stories to entertain myself while I waited for him to finish work. I stand up, walk around my desk, and open the door.

  “Hey, man.” He doesn’t look up. “What are you writing?”

  A pause. “Just stories.”

  “Are you waiting for someone?” I try to sound as approachable as I can, but, hell, what do I know about kids?

  “Yeah. My Mom works down the hall.”

  “Oh, right.” What do kids like? “Do you want a Coke or something? We get them free here, you know.”

  He looks up. “Really?”

  “Yeah.” I grin. “Cool, huh? Hold on, I’ll be back in a sec.”

  The fridge in the office kitchen is stacked with energy drinks, and I rummage in the back to find a Coke. When I get to my office, the kid has gone back to writing on his pad. “Hey, man. Here you go, compliments of Walters Capital.”

  He takes it tentatively and opens it. “Thanks.” He looks like he’s about twelve, although I’m hardly a good judge; dark hair and nascent pimples.

  “So, are you here all the time, or what?” I perch on the chair next to him, making a mental note to ask for more comfortable chairs for the waiting area—damn, no wonder we don’t get many visitors if they have to sit in these things.

  He shrugs. “Only days when there’s no after-school program. Mom always has to work late here.”

  “Sounds like she works pretty hard.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t you have friends you can go and see after school? This place is kinda boring.”

  His face darkens. “No. No-one wants to talk to me. They think I’m a nerd.” He looks down at his pad. “I used to be friends with another guy who wrote stories, and we would talk about them, but he moved away.”

  I try again. “What kind of stuff do you like? Science fiction, fantasy, what?”

  “Yeah. I guess.” This is like pulling teeth, but I can be persistent when I want to be.

  “Well, I like Doctor Who. The new version of Battlestar Galactica is good. And I guess everyone likes Firefly.”

  He looks up again. “What’s Firefly?”

  The look of surprise on my face is completely unfeigned. “You’ve never seen Firefly?”

  “No.” A flicker of interest. “Is it good?”

  “Man, you are in for a treat. I’ll lend you the DVD.”

  “We don’t have a DVD player.” Whoops, showing my age here.

  “No, of course you don’t. No problemo—I’ll put it on a USB stick for you.” He looks at me doubtfully. “Seriously, man, you’ll love it. I’ll bring it in tomorrow. Are you going to be here tomorrow?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, great. You know,” I lean forward, “I kind of wasn’t the most popular guy in school either. I was younger than everyone else in my class, and I had real thick glasses. Not a good combination when you’re twelve.”

  He gives me a caustic look. “I’m thirteen.”

  “Uh. Sorry.” In fairness, this is actually a pretty serious insult when you’re thirteen. “Plus, I couldn’t catch a ball
. Also not good.”

  “I guess not.” Back to the pad again, this time with more determination. I think this conversation is at an end for the moment.

  “Okay, man, I should get back to work.” I proffer a hand. “I’m Tom. It’s been good to meet you.” He looks at my hand for a minute, and eventually puts out his own.

  “I’m Phillip.”

  “See you tomorrow, Phillip.” I retreat to my office and bury myself in the resumes again. Outside, Phillip scribbles on his pad, and occasionally looks up at me.

  4

  We’ve been coming to this stupid conference room for most of the week, and it feels like every day is the same. We arrive at 7am—we’re supposed to sign our names off at the door, but no-one ever does. From 7.30am onward, a succession of bored employees from different parts of Walters Capital come and lecture us about the importance of their area. Every one of them seems convinced that their area is the most important and crucial one in the firm, and not one of them seems to want to be here, talking to us.

  On the first day, everyone was quiet and cowed by the grandeur of the firm and all that, but as it gradually became apparent that the speakers were mostly unwilling and the information mostly useless, the atmosphere gradually deteriorated. Now, the room resembles a high school class on the last day of the semester. At the back, there are a group of guys who are just plain fast asleep; heads back, ties loosened. Maybe they were out late, maybe they just really like sleeping. Hard to say. Down in front are the really eager trainees; heads down, scribbling notes as if there’s going to be an exam next week.