The Deadliest Option (23 page)

“Thinking of switching careers?”

“No way. I like what I do. Now you humor me. Pretend you are teaching a retarded person about options.”

Ellie’s laugh was sour. “Do you have a man in your life, Wetzon? Are you married?”

“Yes to the first, no to the second.”

“I hope he’s not on the Street.”

“Not in the sense you mean.”
More like these mean streets,
she thought.

“Is he nice?”

“Yes. He’s my friend.”

“Ah, Wetzon, it’s never that simple.
Options
are simpler than the adversarial relationships between men and women. Options are cleaner.” Ellie sighed and reached for her second martini. “Okay, and this is really for the simple-minded; present company excepted. Options are wagers. There are two kinds, puts and calls. Calls are wagers to buy a security at a fixed price within a fixed time, and puts are wagers to sell. A call bets the stock is going to go up and a put, down. Options trade in three-month cycles. They expire on the third Friday of every month at the end of the day.”

“The triple witching hour?”

“That only happens four times a year. The final hour of trading just before the contracts expire for equity and index futures contracts.” Ellie played with the toothpick and the olive marinating in the gin in her glass. “So much trading goes on because the arbs and traders want to unload their positions. The stock prices can swing incredibly.”

“What if I want to say that I think General Electric is going to go up in three months?”

“First you’d have to sign an agreement with the brokerage firm that you understand the risks of options and are able to pay in cash the next day if you guess wrong. Then you’d buy one contract for each hundred shares that you want to control. Because you’re using leverage, if you guess right, you could make a lot of money, and if you guess wrong you’d lose your original equity. It’s a good bet, if you know what you’re doing.”

“But it’s a bet.”

“What do you think, Wetzon? Better odds at a craps table? Only if you’re not in good hands. It’s treacherous, if you don’t know your way, and most brokers lose their shirts in options.”

“What about you, Ellie?”

Ellie smiled a slow, satisfied smile. “I do very well. It’s instinct, experience, and confidence. It works for me. I wish I could handle the rest of my life as well.” She polished off the martini and stabbed out her cigarette. “Got me to talk about myself, didn’t you?”

Wetzon smiled and said nothing.

“Don’t ever do options, Wetzon. God, I must be a mess. I’ve got to go.” She stood. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“You know. Why don’t you set me up with Tucker next week?” Ellie patted her hand and moved away, turned suddenly and came back. “Oh, by the way,” she said, “I found out what the fat fuck’s study was about.”

Wetzon’s pulse quickened. “You did?”

“It was a feasibility study about eliminating commissions and putting brokers on straight salary.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Really.”

“It could never happen.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Wetzon. It’s
going
to happen.”

W
HILE SHE WAITED
for the bill, Wetzon took out her Filofax and flipped to the blank note pages. If their clients were to put stockbrokers on salary, where did that leave the headhunter?

She wrote
Personnel Placement
, and under it,
one percent per thousand dollars
, which was the way salaried jobs like secretarial and clerical were paid. God, Smith would have a real fit. She’d always said that kind of work was déclassé. Besides, you had to be licensed by the state to do low-level placement. On the other hand, just about anyone could open an office and declare himself or herself an executive recruiter. The difference was that placement firms for executives, whose salaries were well over twenty-five thousand, were not regulated and thrived or died on good will, good work, and good business development.

The noise level in the room was at its peak, helped along by the women at the next table who, she decided, were college buddies because they were recounting tales punctuated by howling laughter and “do you remember when Dean Kushinsky ...”

Wetzon looked out the window onto Central Park South. Underneath
Personnel Placement,
she wrote
Dinosaur.
The headhunter would be eliminated. If draw vs. commission were to be eliminated, it would please some critics of the industry because it would take away the incentive of payment on gross commissions. It would please some of the low-end brokers who needed the stability of a regular salary, but what big producer would want to work on salary? Even with bonuses when he reached certain designated levels, the broker would never earn what he could on commission. She wrote KILL INCENTIVE!

She paid the bill with her credit card and wrote
Less Motivation to Move.
At least that’s the way it would be at the wire houses. Why move from one to another for the same thing? It was even possible the houses would collude and fix base salaries and commissions. After years of intense rivalry, price-fixing. Of course, the we’re-all-in-this-together mentality. The broker would get royally screwed.

She shook her head, dismayed, and wrote
Boutiques and Regionals.
Never. It would be ludicrous for them to go along and put brokers on salary if the wire houses did. They couldn’t compete. Very entrepreneurial big-firm brokers would begin to consider the smaller houses as real alternatives. Some might even go into business for themselves and clear through the Bear, or Pershing, or one of the other houses that offered back office services to small firms for a price. And that price was low enough for the broker to keep a lot more for himself than he could working for a listed firm. A big producer at a major firm got roughly a sixty-forty split, sixty for the firm, forty for the producer. At a much smaller firm, one that didn’t carry the heavy overhead of marketing and research and information and other designer support systems staffing, the split could be fifty-fifty or even higher, in favor of the broker.

The firms would say to the general public, See, we are safeguarding you from the few bandits that get through our rigid screening by eliminating the possibility of churning—buying and selling of securities by the broker for the purpose of raising his gross commissions.

She wrote
Order Taker.
The stockbroker would be reduced to the uncreative position of order taker. He would sell the firm’s products instead of shopping for the best product on the Street. The clients would cleave to the firm, not the broker.

Stockbrokers would have to organize, she thought suddenly, to protect themselves. Brokers, who considered they were running their own businesses, would find themselves so manipulated by management, they would have to look for representation. She wrote
Teamsters
? Then she wrote ALTON PINKUS!

Maybe Smith and Wetzon could switch gears and become labor organizers. The thought was so insane, she laughed out loud, and she was still laughing as she trudged over to Sixth Avenue in sauna heat and caught the “7” bus. It was only moderately air-conditioned, but better than the street; she found a seat in the back next to a small, white-haired woman who was sorting newspaper clippings into a gigantic accordion file. Her feet, encased in Nike running shoes, dangled well off the floor of the bus.

Wetzon pulled
The Oldest Living Confederate Widow
from her briefcase and opened it to her bookmark.

“Do you own a dog?” the woman asked.

“What?” Wetzon looked up, startled, into pale blue eyes, set into a cascade of wrinkles.

“Don’t get me wrong. I love dogs. My grandchildren have dogs. What can I do about it? Nothing. It’s not the dogs, it’s the people who own them. Dog crap everywhere—in the park where children play. I can’t tell you what I’ve seen. Horrible eye diseases, infections, parasites. Of course, everyone acts as if I’m crazy.” She touched Wetzon’s arm gently. “Goldie Hawn wanted to do my life, but I wouldn’t compromise. I have a good heart, what can I tell you? But we are surrounded by dirty dogs and disease and careless owners.”

The woman gathered up her material and got off the bus at Seventy-ninth Street. On the street Wetzon saw her stop another woman with three German shepherds on a leash. Probably telling her that she didn’t need three dogs.

When she opened the door to her apartment, it was as hot as the street, and she ran from room to room turning on the air-conditioners. She’d have a monumental Con Ed bill this month, but who cared? Comfort was everything.

She stripped off her moist clothing and took an icy shower, then put on short bicycle tights and one of Silvestri’s sleeveless tees. The apartment had cooled off some. She sat cross-legged on the bed and called Sharon Murphy.

“Sharon? Wetzon.”

“Hi, I just got in,” Sharon said. “Hold on while I get something to drink.” Her voice was huskier than usual.

Wetzon waited patiently and was rewarded in a couple of minutes by the click of ice against glass. “Okay,” Sharon said.

“What did you think?”

“I liked Marty. We talked for over an hour. They have a decent bond inventory. He showed me what they have on a given day.”

“What else did you talk about?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Direct investments. Marty’s going to set me up with the guy who runs that department.”

“Good. How did you leave it?”

“We’re going to talk again. He also gave me the number of a friend of his in Boston who just switched from Slutton to Loeb Dawkins so he could explain the differences.”

“Did you say Slutton?”

“That’s what we’re all calling it. Apt, don’t you think?”

Wetzon laughed. Shearson Lehman Hutton. Slutton. “If you say so.” The industry was a breeding ground for witty, cynical jokes, which traveled like viruses, usually from the trading floors. “That’s a good beginning, don’t you think?”

“Wetzon, to tell you the truth, I don’t think I’m very interested in Loeb Dawkins. You see, I’ve been interviewing pretty seriously with Luwisher Brothers, and I really like what they’re about.”

Wetzon almost dropped the phone. “Wait a minute, Sharon. Luwisher Brothers? They’re downtown. I thought you wouldn’t, under any circumstances, go downtown?”

“Oh, I know I said that, but there are express buses from my neighborhood. It won’t be easy, but I can do it. It would be worth a little discomfort for what I could get down there.”

“Well, Luwisher Brothers is a client firm, and it’s a wonderful place to work. I did mention it to you last week and would have had you look at it as an alternative if you hadn’t been so adamant about not going downtown. Who are you talking to there?”

“Chris Gorham. He’s really nice. We had dinner together last week, and we really hit it off. I’m sorry about this, Wetzon, but I’m close to a deal. I would love to work with you, but after all, you didn’t show me Luwisher Brothers and someone else did.”

“Oh, then you’re working with another headhunter?”

“Yes, I am, and I’d rather not say who. I met everybody up at Luwisher Brothers yesterday. John Hoffritz, Destry Bird. They wouldn’t let me leave without giving them a commitment.”

“Okay, Sharon. Chris is a super guy. They’re all terrific, but I really think you should take your time about this. Working downtown will change the quality of your life.”

“I know that,” Sharon said regretfully. “My shrink is uptown.”

“Well, look, as I said before, I love Luwisher Brothers. They are an aggressive equities house. Are you going to switch your business to equities? Don’t you do over fifty percent bonds?”

“Why would I have to switch?”

“Because Luwisher Brothers is very weak on bonds. I’m not saying you shouldn’t go there because there’s no better place to work. If I were a broker I would want to work there, but ask the right questions before you commit yourself. Check out their bond setup.”

“Okay, I will, Wetzon. And thank you.”

“What do you want me to tell Marty?”

“Tell him I’m thinking about it.”

Wetzon hung up the phone feeling really shot down. Not only was she going to lose the fee on Sharon, but Sharon was making a terrible mistake. On the other hand, Wetzon couldn’t tell her that because she could not put herself in the position of bad-mouthing a client, even if it meant the broker was making the wrong career decision. And it would also look as if she was trying to poison the well. Besides, Wetzon had always liked the atmosphere at Luwisher Brothers—until the events of the last few days.

She reached for the phone to call Smith and break the news to her, when it rang. “Hello!”

“Well, don’t bite my head off, darlin’.”

“Oh, Laura Lee. I’m sorry. It’s been a torturous day, so it’s really good to talk to you. What nice news do you bring me?”

“I don’t truly know that you’ll think it’s such nice news.”

“Uh-oh. Don’t tell me the wedding is off?”

“No, not at all. Remember I told you I’d check out the subject of that mysterious study?”

“Yes, and if you’re going to tell me it was a study about how to put brokers on salary, I already know, and it doesn’t seem likely.”

“Well, Wetzon darlin’, I’m glad to hear you know what’s goin’ on, but what I have to tell you is barf-in-a-bag news. Prepare yourself.”

Wetzon groaned and lay back against the cool pillows. “Tell me.”

“Search and Destroy are goin’ to announce the new program at a news conference at Luwisher Brothers on Thursday.”

Wetzon punched her pillow with her fist. “
What
new program? They’re my clients, why aren’t they telling
me?”

“Well, darlin’, let me be the first then to tell you the news. On July first, your esteemed clients are puttin’ all their brokers on salary.”

W
ETZON WANDERED AROUND
her apartment in a state of
agita.
Smith was the only living human being left in the world who wouldn’t use an answering machine, so there was no way to leave a message for her. Well, fuck it then, Smith would have to wait to hear the news tomorrow.