whipping them to make more money.
“Not that funny. The man’s schizo in the head. Last time he overindulged in my presence, he talked about his Nimrodic war theories. That was after the SEC dropped the Treasury manipulation investigation. Morgan treated us to Dom Perignon—a case of the stuff. A small reward for all of us circling the wagons.”
“Treasury investigation?” Peter asked.
“A long story with a happy ending. I’ll tell you about it another day. Anyway, Muller drank too much and let his hair down. I had to endure a profane lecture on why the South lost the Civil War. He thinks the Southern generals weren’t, in his words, ‘fucking ruthless enough.’ When Northern generals like Sherman marched through the South, they burned plantations, raped women, murdered everyone in their path. If Lee and the South’s other gentleman-generals had done the same thing, the North would have capitulated. At least that’s Muller’s theory.”
“Sounds a tad revisionist. The South lost because they had limited resources, no manufacturing, and—”
“Who gives a rat’s-ass, dude?” Stuart said, hiking his shoulders into his neck.
Peter felt stupid for debating the issue. “You’re right. Who cares? I used to collect baseball cards.”
Stuart leaned back and said, “Anyway, with Muller it’s more than a hobby; it’s life. He looks at creating wealth as warfare—and in a way, he has a point. His theory about the effectiveness of ruthless tactics applies. This is a business where the weak perish. Scruples are . . . anyway, it’s all about making scratch, no ifs, ands, or buts.”
“Okay. Since you brought it up, how the hell does one make all this money for the funds?”
“Good question. I should write a book, but then I’d end up in jail.” Stuart grinned.
“Jail?”
“I’m kidding, dude. Back to making money. First, you gotta learn the various trading vehicles: options, futures, stocks, bonds, currency, commodities, whatever. Then you gotta develop relationships with CEOs, specialists on the floor of the exchanges, analysts, syndicate managers, anybody and everybody. Find out what punches their button, then punch away. That’s why I go out with these brokers when they travel to San Diego—that and occasionally getting laid. Then squeeze everyone and everything for all their worth. Gain access to the best sources of information. Use money as leverage to acquire what you need to know—commission dollars are as good as cold, hard cash. If commissions aren’t an option, then . . . well, you’ll figure that out in due time.”
“To that end,” Peter said, “let’s get me up to speed.” He pointed his head at the empty conference room.
“They told me to take you under my wing, so might as well get started. By the way, when you finish with Muller, you ought to come join me with the salesperson from Gordon, Ashe. She’s a hotty and she’s bringing along a co-worker.”
Peter thought he saw a shameless leer overtake Stuart’s grin.
Once inside the conference room, Peter plowed through his list of questions, but each answer produced a new set of questions.
Another two hours later, standing outside Muller’s office and waiting to be summoned, Peter felt his head ache with an overdose of information.
Peter waited a couple of minutes for Attila the Boss to notice him. He leaned against a pillar off to one side. Once Muller made eye contact, his brows furrowed and his eyes rolled. Peter took that as an invitation to enter.
The moment Peter stepped in, Muller snatched a phone and pasted it to his ear. Turning from Peter, not bothering to excuse himself, he said, “At 4:07 Pacific time, the dollar cross-rate was: 3.32. I buy one billion. Sold at . . .” Muller lifted and bent his left arm, exposing a heavy gold wristwatch. Peter noticed he wore a wedding ring. Poor woman.
Muller continued: “It is now 5:02 p.m., and the cross rate is 3.11. I’m selling one billion back to you.” The CIO entered something into a handheld calculator. “I am netting sixty-six million, two hundred twenty-five thousand, one hundred. That goes against Grand Cayman, booked to . . .”
Peter couldn’t hear the rest.
Once Muller hung up, he reached inside a drawer and removed what looked like a sophisticated television remote control. He aimed it at a metal box, sitting on the near corner of his desk, and began pressing buttons. He next picked up a black-bordered trade ticket—one that Peter now recognized as a buy ticket—and inserted it into a slot in that box. An electronic hum announced a time stamp. Muller wrote something on the face of the ticket.
Finished writing, Stenman’s CIO aimed the remote a second time. This time he grabbed a red-bordered ticket—indicating an asset sale— inserted it, then removed it. He made a few notations, clipped the buy and sell tickets together, and crammed them inside a Plexiglas vacuum tube, into which they disappeared. These transactions, or whatever they were, took less than three minutes from start to finish.
Muller refocused on Peter. “Sit down.” He aimed his finger like a gun at the leather-bound chair angled across from his desk. Peter obediently complied. “I will explain this project one time—” Muller’s eyes darted between three computer screens as he spoke “—so I want you to shut up and listen. We’ve done a crap job of monitoring commission payments. Most of these piece-of-shit brokers we do business with receive more money from us than they’re worth. Your job is to review year-to-date payouts to each deadbeat firm, then go to my traders and get them to rate how useful these idiot-sticks have been. Is that clear?”
Peter unbuttoned his jacket, pretending relaxation. He then cleared his throat and said, “You want me to correlate—”
“I said: shut up.”
Peter nodded, grateful Stuart had explained how the brokers made money from Stenman’s trading. Without that, even this elementary request might have passed a mile over his head. “Uh—” Peter cringed, knowing an attack was inevitable “—who do I contact to get this information?” That his voice sounded apologetic seemed unavoidable.
“Listen, Asswipe. That’s for you to figure out. And I expect this project not to interfere with your workday— you’re going to stay married to Numbnuts until I decide whether to fire you, or give you more responsibility. Now get out.”
Another phone must have flashed because as Peter prepared to slink out, Muller picked up a headset and said, “Oil futures trading at . . .”
It seemed like a lot had happened, but the entire episode had lasted less than seven minutes. Remembering Stuart’s suggestion that they meet for drinks and dinner, Peter decided to do just that.
On the way down the elevator, he committed to coming in to work at four the next morning. “If Muller wants a dedicated worker,” he said to himself, “then a dedicated worker is what he’s gonna get.”
Fifteen minutes later, Peter leaned across a table in a crowded hotel bar and shook hands with Aimie St. Claire, sales backup from Gordon, Ashe International. Across from her, with Stuart’s arm already draped around her shoulder, sat Louise Hartman, lead salesperson on the Stenman Partners’ account.
Two glasses later, the champagne had just enough of an effect that Peter forgot everything. Everything, that is, except how to have one hell of a good time.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ON FRIDAY, PETER ARRIVED AT WORK HALF-AN-HOUR LATER THAN HE had intended, but still early. Faces he did not recognize worked the phones—many traders spoke in foreign languages. Peter sat, listened, and observed. With about half the number of bodies as later in the day, the room felt more subdued, but the intensity was still evident. These workers seemed like nocturnal animals, creeping around in a mysterious world where everything they did arose from instinct or impulse. But Peter already understood the difference between decisions made in milliseconds and a lack of thought. See, react, trade, move on, then do it again and again and again. As impossible as it seemed, he’d seen Stuart Grimes make a hundred such decisions over those few hours yesterday, most of them yielding positive financial results.
In the background, janitorial personnel silently worked between desks, careful not to distract traders’
