Chapter 16: Something Doesn’t Add Up

September 13, 1982, Chicago, Illinois

“How is your ankle?” I asked Bob when he came into the mailroom just before 8:00am.

“Better, and Extra-Strength Tylenol keeps the pain to a minimum.”

“Just be careful as you’re moving around, and if you need to take a break, let me know and we’ll work something out. How long on the brace?”

“A few weeks. The doc said I should be ‘good as new’ in four weeks, which means three more, roughly.”

“Did you turn in the form you received from your doctor to Personnel?”

“As soon as I arrived. I handed it to Haley as soon as I walked in this morning.”

“I assume you’ll need time off for a doctor’s visit at some point?”

“Two weeks from today, unless I have significant new pain or some other complication. I’ll need a few hours on that Monday afternoon.”

I made a note on the desk calendar blotter.

“No problem. Let’s get to work!”

The morning was routine until just before 11:00am when the computer equipment arrived. The practice I’d had with Bianca in setting up my computer at home made getting it up and running go much faster, though I did it in fits and starts while juggling my other duties and ensuring smooth operation of the mailroom.

“What’s that for?” Bob asked when he returned from his lunch break.

“You know all the paperwork Mr. Nelson and I have to do? This should speed it up. Instead of doing it all by hand with a desk calculator, I can just type in the numbers and the computer will spit out the reports on the printer. It’ll save several hours of work every week and reduce errors.”

“There has to be a catch!”

I laughed, “There is! I get to do Mr. Nelson’s weekly reports as well as my own, but I can accomplish that in less time than it used to take me to do my own work by hand.”

“Why so much paperwork?”

“Because every single thing we do has to be billed to someone — either a trading team, a customer, or ‘general overhead’. And you can bet your bottom dollar that Mr. Spurgeon wants as little as possible to go to ‘general overhead’ because that comes right out of his pocket!”

“It’s not like he can’t afford it!” Bob protested.

“The reason he can afford it is because, wait for it, he makes sure he doesn’t need to!”

Bob laughed, “Good point! Every penny not spent builds his personal Scrooge McDuck pile of gold coins!”

“Somehow, I doubt Mr. Spurgeon swims in a pile of gold coins in his basement!”

“No, just teenage pussy, to hear the rumors!”

“True or not, I don’t think discussing that is a good career move, do you?”

“Probably not, but it’s common knowledge.”

“Common knowledge or not, I don’t think repeating it is worth risking my job.”

“He’s making a good point,” Jack chimed in. “There’s a reason we’re not supposed to fraternize, and that should include gossip.”

Fortunately, Bob was able to keep up with his work, though he was a bit slower on his rounds, which I’d expected. I didn’t get much time to work on my spreadsheets, and I decided my best bet was to continue working on them at home, as I had the time. The work I’d done over the weekend would be sufficient to show progress, and I’d be able to do more once I was finished with my Series 3 course.

When I arrived home that evening, there was a message from Jeri. I returned her call after dinner.

“If you’re available Friday, I’ll schedule a dinner with Gary, Marcia. and Nelson,” she said. “It’ll just be a ‘get to know you’ situation, and you can take it from there.”

“I don’t have any plans for Friday. When and where?”

“My house at 7:00pm, though it’s OK to arrive any time after 6:00pm and we’ll have drinks. My parents are out of town...”

“As tempting as that is, I think it’s best to keep our relationship strictly business,” I said, then quickly added, “My definition of ‘business’, not yours!”

Jeri laughed softly, “It is business. As one of my dad’s friends once said, marriage is the most expensive way to get free sex on the planet!”

“As I heard it, sex is never actually free, because you pay for it one way or another. But I’m not sure that’s true in a solid, stable marriage.”

“Good luck with THAT! I’ve told you about my parents, and I’m sure you know about the Spurgeons. That’s basically the norm.”

“In your world, perhaps, but in mine, Bev’s parents were the norm. Granted, I had a small sample size, but my uncle, my grandparents, and others I knew had stable marriages without cheating or separate bedrooms or whatever.”

“And your mom? And your friend Bev?”

“Were never married,” I replied. “A completely different context.”

“But you have to compromise so much to get that stability, which means it’s not truly stable.”

“I’ll have to think more about that, but my friend Anala seems to think it’s possible, though she completely discounts romantic love, and, to be honest, I totally get where she’s coming from in that regard because of Bev and me. Anyway, I’ll be at your place on Friday.”

“Should I send a car?”

“No. I have my car, so I’ll just drive.”

“Park in the driveway behind the house, which you can access from the alley.”

“See you sometime between 6:00pm and 7:00pm. Oh, before I forget, what’s the dress code?”

“Casual. You can just take off your tie and unbutton your Oxford shirt and you’ll be fine.”

After I hung up, I called Jack to let him know that I wasn’t available Friday, then called Huifen to let her know what I was doing, and agreed we’d go out on Saturday evening.

September 17, 1982, Chicago, Illinois

“How are your classes going?” Jeri asked when I arrived at her house just after 6:00pm on Friday evening.

“I’ve only had one Series 3 class so far, and it’s more or less review of the training information I borrowed from work. There are some regulatory differences between trading equities and trading futures and commodities, but they aren’t like night-and-day different. As for my computer class, it’s fine, other than having to spend a lot of time in the computer lab.”

“Why not do it at home?”

“Because I want to work with Violet, and it wouldn’t be convenient.”

“She’s that good?” Jeri asked with a smirk.

“We’re just friends, and not like you and I are friends or business partners, or whatever you want to call it.”

“You think guys and girls can be friends without having sex?”

“Obviously. I have at least two — Anala and Violet. I suppose you’ll say you don’t count because we’ve had sex in the past.”

“And with those other two, it’s ‘not yet’,” Jeri said firmly.

“I have information which you don’t have, and which I can’t share to protect their privacy, that says you’re dead wrong. I believe you understand how your world works, but not how mine works.”

“They’re the same.”

“Are they? Really? Yes, we both live in Chicago, but we travel in very different circles, with the intersection of those circles effectively limited to the times we get together. And you’ve pointed out, time and again, that there are different rules for different people. Heck, I see that with Spurgeon, where the general public isn’t even playing the same game as the professional investors, and the general public doesn’t realize it!

“For all intents and purposes, when I lived in Goshen, the world in which you live didn’t even exist, except, perhaps, insofar as my uncle honoring my request for help. Nothing you, your family, or Spurgeon did affected my day-to-day life, except perhaps at the periphery, where they created economic impact through inflation or currency manipulation. And if so, I wasn’t aware of it at all, so it may as well have been on Mars!”

“But you know different,” Jeri replied.

“I know better how things affect the ‘little guy’, but I’m only on the periphery of the world you live in, and, frankly, I refuse to live in it. Sure, I’ll do business with it the way I am with you, but I won’t live in it.”

“There, I think you’re horribly mistaken and fooling yourself. Once the money starts rolling in, you’ll see.”

“There’s a big difference that likely will never be overcome — I’ve been dirt poor and I’m not afraid of being dirt poor again. You have never been and are scared to death of it. That’s what causes your world to work the way it does, and that’s why I’ll never be part of it the way you believe I will.”

“We’ll see,” Jeri replied as the doorbell rang, signifying the arrival of another guest.

Karl brought a young woman who didn’t look all that much older than me into the room.

“Miss Jeri? Miss Blake.”

“Thank you, Karl,” Jeri said.

“Hi Marcia! This is Jonathan Kane, the up-and-coming finance guy I told you about. Jonathan, this is Marcia Blake, aide to Congressman Harold Washington.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

“Same,” she replied.

“What does a Congressional aide do?”

“The same as you,” she said with a big smile, “whatever I’m told!”

I laughed, “Good point. For me, that means keeping the mailroom running while I’m studying for my securities licenses and going to night school.”

“For me, that means helping run the local office, responding to constituent requests, and doing community outreach. Other aides help draft legislation, keep the Congressmen’s schedule, and so on. We don’t do anything for political campaigning, just for his official work.”

“What happens if he manages to get elected Mayor?” I asked.

“Well, first, he has to declare, which he won’t do until after he wins his Congressional election,” she said, then cracked a smile, “and then I’ll have a chance to replace Gary, who’ll be here shortly.”

“You two are friendly?”

“Our bosses will potentially fight it out in the Democratic primary, but we’re all cordial. Neither Mayor Byrne nor Congressman Washington are old-style machine politicians like Old Man Daley or his son.”

The doorbell rang again and a moment later Karl brought in Gary and Nelson and introduced them. As Jeri had said, Nelson was an attorney with a local law firm, and Gary was a Deputy Chief of Staff for Mayor Byrne. After we introduced each other, Karl brought us all drinks, and I reminded myself to be careful how much I drank as I had to drive home.

“My purpose in getting us all together,” Jeri said, “is that we’re all under twenty-six, and while we need connections with more senior people to advance, we all need people at our own level who are up-and-coming.

“As we all know, Chicago hasn’t elected a Republican mayor since 1927 and there are no Republican Aldermen, so having contacts inside the Democratic Party is a must, and none of us are part of the Chicago Democratic Machine. That in itself means we need contacts who aren’t part of the Machine if we’re going to be successful.

“In addition, having a future hot-shot lawyer and future hot-shot financial services guy are to all our advantages. At some point, we’ll want to add a hot-shot entrepreneur, but I haven’t found one yet, because I want to avoid all the dweebs, dorks, and other assorted morons who haunt my mother’s galas.”

“And the goal?” I asked.

“Money and power, of course! The ability to not just control our own lives, but to shape the world into something that benefits us!”

“Don’t let Congressman Washington hear you say that!” Marcia declared. “We’re trying to improve things for the people.”

I almost laughed, because everything I’d seen since coming to Chicago screamed the opposite. The ‘little people’ only got what trickled down, as the Democrats accused Reagan of, and when you were at the bottom, it was likely piss, not anything positive! The idea that a ‘rising tide lifts all boats’ was a cruel joke for people like my mom.

On the other hand, the ‘American Dream’ of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps seemed attainable, at least for me. That said, though, I wasn’t doing it completely on my own, but I was making my own opportunities and taking advantage of them as best I could. And that, in the end, was what I would gain from the people in this group.

“Are any of you married?” I asked. “I’m not.”

“I am,” Nelson replied. “And we have a baby on the way.”

“I’m married as well,” Gary said. “No kids yet, but probably in a year or so.”

“I’m living the Yuppie single life!” Marcia declared. “Complete with a house in Lincoln Park.”

“And an alligator on your polo shirt!” Gary observed.

She was wearing an Izod polo, which very nicely defined her breasts, and the alligator logo was the LAST thing I’d noticed! And I wasn’t the only one who had that thought.

“Right, Gary,” Jeri said with a smirk, “it was the alligator you noticed!”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about!” he replied with a grin.

“Or at least that’s your story for your wife!” Nelson declared.

“Miss Jeri?” Karl said, coming into the great room. “Dinner is served.”

“Thank you, Karl,” Jeri said.

Dinner was awesome, as it always was at Jeri’s house, and the conversation was fun and I liked all three people Jeri had invited. Having contacts in local government, the Federal government, and at a prestigious law firm would be extremely helpful in the future. My contribution, of course, would be helping them make money or understand financial markets, though that was still a way down the road.

After dinner, we had homemade apple fritters for dessert, along with ice cream, then spent another hour or so chatting. Gary and Nelson both had to get home, so they excused themselves and we said ‘good night’.

“Jonathan,” Jeri said when the guys had left, “I was going to call a car for Marcia, but Lincoln Park isn’t out of your way, really, would you give her a lift?”

“I could,” I replied, “assuming she’s OK with that.”

“I am,” Marcia said. “You don’t look like a serial killer!”

“But aren’t those always the ones where some neighbor says ‘he was such a nice, quiet boy’?” I asked.

“True!” Marcia agreed. “ARE you a serial killer?”

“Given I haven’t killed anyone, no, I’m not, and have no plans to become one!”

“Good to know!”

We said ‘good night’ to Jeri, who asked me to call her, then walked out to my car. I held the passenger door for Marcia and then got into the driver’s seat.

“Either being mailroom supervisor pays better than I think, or this car has to eat up a good chunk of your take-home pay!”

“I own it free and clear,” I replied as I backed out of the driveway. “It was part of an arrangement with my mentor at Spurgeon.”

“You must be on a serious fast-track if you warrant a car!”

“I saw an opportunity, seized it, and am doing everything I can to move up as quickly as possible. That’s why I’m trying to get my securities licenses.”

“How old are you?”

“I turn twenty in about six weeks.”

“Jesus! You’re a baby!”

“What are you? Twenty-four?”

“Twenty-five. I earned a Master’s degree in political science and a friend asked the Congressman to hire me right after graduation just over a year ago.”

“Similar to how I got my foot in the door at Spurgeon. Now I have to make something of it.”

“Same here. That’s true for Gary and Nelson, too. They both knew someone.”

“How did you meet Jeri?”

“The same way Nelson did — Congressman Washington and Mayor Byrne both appeared at a fundraiser that Jeri’s mom organized. How did you meet Jeri?”

“She’s friends with my cousin.”

“And you two...”

“Friends and future business partners. Once I’m licensed, I can manage money for other people.”

“And you know enough at this point to do that?”

“This car is a direct result of my analyzing a stock and it performing the way I expected it to.”

“You’re that good?”

“Making a few good stock picks is not an indicator of much more than potential,” I replied. “You have to be able to do it consistently, not just hit a few home runs on occasion. I still have a lot to learn, especially about currency trading, futures, and options, and how to evaluate the market and the economy. That’s part of why the next step is analyst, because it allows me to do that, but the ultimate call on trades comes from the trader, broker, or money manager who reviews my analysis.”

“It’s actually similar with legislative proposals — the staff write them up, or analyze ones from other Congressmen, but the final say comes from the Congressman we work for.”

“What do you analyze?” I asked.

“Cost, efficacy, fairness, and consistency. I know that sounds strange coming from the Federal government, but each individual proposal is evaluated that way. The problem is, nobody is really evaluating everything overall, and there are some sacred cows, like Reagan’s defense spending, that nobody can touch. All but the most liberal Members of Congress vote for defense spending because it creates jobs in their districts, even if they think we should reduce the size of our military.”

“Not going to happen with Reagan in the White House,” I said.

“You can say that again!”

“Not going to happen with Reagan in the White House.”

“I didn’t mean that literally, you goofball!” Marcia said, laughing softly.

“Yeah, but you laughed, so it was the right thing to say.”

“I did, didn’t I? Nobody asked, but where are you from?”

“Goshen, Ohio, which is east of Cincinnati. You?”

“Ojai, California. It’s northwest of LA. You might have heard about it because it was the hometown of Colonel Steve Austin on The Six Million Dollar Man, and is the town where they introduced Jamie Sommers, who was The Bionic Woman.”