Jennifer Government: A Novel Read Free Page A

sixth-floor cube farm. Brokers didn’t get proper offices, or even walls above shoulder height, at least not in Competitive Accounts. In his first year here, Buy had been grateful for that, because it was so easy to turn to a coworker for help. Now it annoyed him, for the same reason.
    Hamish, who ran the night shift from Buy’s desk, was pulling off his headphones. “Hey, Buy.”
    “Hey.” Hamish looked relaxed and happy. Buy felt a flash of jealousy. “How’s the market?”
    “Even jumpier than you. Take it easy, buddy. You’ll get there.”
    “Yeah, I know.” He tried to sound sincere. Hamish patted him on the back and left for what was no doubt a day of lying on the sofa watching football, or activities equally casual and stressfree. Hamish had made quota six weeks ago, and Buy was finding it harder and harder to not hate him.
    Buy slid into the seat, plugged in his telephone headset, and dialed. Taped to his cubicle wall was a note he’d written in Q1:
    SUCCESS = 500 CALLS PER DAY
    He stared at it while his client’s phone rang. Buy was starting to think that success was a big crapshoot.
    In France, he wouldn’t be in a position like this. Of course, in France he wouldn’t have received last year’s paycheck of$347,000, either. That was why he’d left: the EU was a socialist morass, with taxes and unemployment and public everything. Until recently, Buy had thought that moving to a USA country was the best move he’d ever made, with the possible exception of changing his name from Jean-Paul.
    “You’ve reached Michael Microsoft, Project Manager Business Solutions Division. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”
    Buy started rambling about market indicators pointing to increasing volatility, clicking through his e-mail at the same time. There was a message from a friend who now worked for US Alliance, one of the big customer loyalty programs:
    Buy—
    A priest and a stockbroker meet at the Pearly Gates. Saint Peter gives the broker a golden harp and silk robes and lets him into Heaven. Then he gives the priest a rusty trumpet and some old rags. The priest says, “Hey, how come the stockbroker gets the harp and robes?” And Saint Peter says, “Because while you preached, people slept—but his clients, now, they prayed.”
    —Sami.
    P.S. We just passed 200 million subscribers at US Alliance and are about to sign on the NRA (still hush-hush). But I guess that’s not as exciting as making monkey trades for Mitsui, huh?
    Buy looked at his watch. It was noon in L.A. He hung up on Michael Microsoft’s voice mail and dialed.
    “Sami UA.”
    “Are you serious about NRA?”
    “Buy! How you doing?”
    “You don’t want to know.”
    “Yeah, I’m very serious. You have no idea how fast things are moving here.”
    “You know what will happen to NRA’s stock price if they sign with US Alliance?”
    “Gee, I don’t know, Buy. I’m not a stockbroker anymore.”
    He felt a rush of gratitude. “Thank you, Sami.”
    “Wait. You can’t use this information. It’s company confidential.”
    Buy paused. “Are you—”
    “Come on,” Sami said. “You know I have to say that. You’ve had a rough year, right? Maybe things will turn around for you.” He hung up.
    For a second, Buy felt paralyzed. There were too many things he needed to do at once. Fifteen years ago, this would have been insider trading, but that quaint concept had disappeared a decade or two ago when so many brokers were doing it that it was impossible to jail them all. Now it was called smart trading.
    He tucked the phone under his ear, hit SPEED DIAL 1, and started tapping out an e-mail.
    “Jason Mutual Unity.”
    Buy said, “I’m calling because you’re my best client. I have some information that’s going to make a lot of people a lot of money and I want you to be one of them.” At the same time, he tapped out:
    IF YOU WANT TO RIDE A WAVE
CALL ME RIGHT NOW
    He dragged his entire client list into the address field and