One Old Slip, just above the Salomon Brothers building on the East River waterfront, was a massive tower that commanded a sweeping view of the harbor and the monuments to money that had been erected in lower Manhattan since the nation was young. Warren crossed the windswept plaza and pushed through a set of revolving doors into a cavernous, granite-clad lobby with an immense and powerful Frank Stella painting suspended on the far wall.
The security guard in the lobby called upstairs, and Warren was given a pass to the nineteenth floor. When he got off the elevator, a sleek reception hall with burnished wood trim and the firm’s logo in large brass letters greeted him. The woman at the console took his name and asked him to take a seat.
After a few minutes, a short, heavyset young man in a billowing white shirt and red tie emerged from the glass doors and headed toward him. “Warren?” The man’s hand was extended.
“Yes. Are you Rich?” Warren stood up and gave a firm shake.
“Yup. Rich Symanski. You’re right on time.” Rich’s attitude seemed congenial enough.
“Thanks. It was an easy trip.” Warren noticed Rich had a sheaf of papers in his hand. Symanski caught him looking.
“This is a couple copies of your résumé and your interview schedule. Hope you’re ready for a long day.” They were making their way along the perimeter of the trading floor, a cavernous, double-height room that contained about three hundred modular trading desks with no partitions or walls, just stacks of video monitors and computer screens. The open floor was a nest of activity, with dozens of young men in white shirts and ties holding phones to their ears, some yelling out numbers, others pointing to the small trading screens. A few women were scattered around. The tall windows were tinted dark against the bright daylight, and the fluorescent lighting gave the scene a greenish cast. To their left, a line of offices, each with a glass wall, fronted on the floor. Absolutely no place in the entire room had any real privacy.
“Here’s your schedule. We’re starting you off with the toughest part first. You survive that, you move on. You’ll finish with Jillene Manus, head of HR. Hey, I’m the oldest Weldon trainee ever. I’m famous.” Symanski handed Warren a typed sheet as they walked.
“What do you do now?” Warren took the sheet and scanned it, noticing Symanski’s name was not on it, and wondering why he would be proud of coming so late to the game.
“Oh, I’m just starting on the convertible desk. Not cars. Bonds. Convertible bonds.” Rich giggled to himself a bit.
“Well, I suppose they’re not so great for those rainy days.” Warren figured a little humor might ease his tension. He knew what convertible bonds were; Fisher had covered them a few weeks before. And bonds were supposedly safe investments, literally good for the proverbial rainy day.
“Hey, hotshot, think you were the first to come up with that one?” In fact, Symanski had never heard that play on words before, and Warren could tell by his tone.
“Nah. Just learning as I go,” Warren said in a conciliatory tone, minding his girlfriend’s advice and holding back from adding a sarcastic Aw, shucks.
“You’re learning pretty fast, rookie. Now, here’s Bill Pike’s office. I’m going to do you a favor. Someone must have had it in for you to start you with him first. He’s the biggest prick in the place. Only one out of ten get past him. He’ll piss all over you. Just do your best not to let him get to you. After him, you’re on your own to find the guys on the rest of the schedule. I might be tied up.” Rich knocked on the door and cracked it. He leaned his head in and spoke briefly, then ushered Warren in past him. “Warren, this is Bill Pike. He’s in charge of fixed income—that’s bonds. Bill, you’ve got Warren’s résumé on your stack there. He’s from—”
“Jesus Christ, Symanski, that’s enough. Get your fat, fucking lard ass out of my office already and go make some money, will ya? What are ya, a goddamn secretary or something?” Symanski started to object, but Pike cut him off. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Just leave me and Wonderboy here alone. Go take dictation or something.” Pike picked up a golf putter that was leaning against his desk. Symanski grinned, tittered, and ducked out. “Fucking fruitcake, wouldn’t know a bond if it tried to blow him in the bathroom,” Pike muttered under his breath, then looked up at Warren with an appraising glare. “So, you wanna work for Weldon, eh?”
Pike was easily fifty pounds heavier than Symanski, though no taller, and his gut rolled over his pants. He wielded the putter like an ax and paced around the room, which was at least fifteen by thirty, with a huge partner’s desk, a seating area with a sofa and three chairs around a coffee table, and golf balls scattered across the floor. He didn’t offer Warren a chair.
“Yes, sir.” Warren was a bit off-balance. Pike’s hostility was like a big, angry wave perennially about to break.
“Now there’s a deeply considered answer. ‘Yes, sir.’ I didn’t see any military service on your résumé there, Wonderboy. I saw Columbia and Cornell. Let me ask you something: Why might you want to work for Weldon?” Pike’s walruslike face loomed closer as he swooped past on his orbit toward the bank of blinking screens behind the great desk. Warren didn’t correct him about having gone to Brown and not Cornell. Pike didn’t seem to be the kind of guy you’d want to correct, to put it mildly.
“Everyone recognizes it is the top trading house on the Street, Mr. Pike. If you want to trade, anyplace else is second best. I want to trade.” Warren tried to sound confident—he knew from reading the newspapers that Weldon and Salomon were always competing to be considered the biggest, ballsiest trading house. He figured a little flattery might ease Pike up a bit.
“You want to trade. You want to trade.” Pike’s whiny imitation was halfway between a school-yard taunt and a lament. “What the fuck makes you think you even know what it means to trade? What makes you think you know anything? You’re just some goddamn kid who’s going to come in here and be the hottest fucking piece of shit we’ve ever seen, eh?”
Pike reminded Warren of a lot of professional hockey players later on in their careers. He’d seen them at Rangers’ games. Surly, scarred, short-tempered. He could imagine Pike in a Red Wings uniform, trying to smash in the teeth of some first-round draft pick.
“Um, no, sir. I’ve just found trading fascinating, I’m extremely interested in mortgage-backed securities, and—” Warren was about to say he just wanted a chance to get into the system, but Pike cut him off.
“You’ve found trading fascinating. Just exactly what the fuck have you traded in your illustrious career, Mr. Hament?” Pike had stopped, bent over, at the screens, perused them, and looked up at Warren.
“Well, I traded metals and some other futures on the COMEX and NYMEX, and a few financial futures through a friend who is a member of the Chicago Board of Trade—”