Read Online Two Time by Chris Knopf - Free Book Online Page B

everyone would run their careers like Jonathan’s. Separate, but jacked-in. Efficient, lucrative and stress free.
    “So, no ideas?” asked Jackie, hackles still firmly in place.
    “Beg pardon?”
    “About the bombing. Your boss. The sweetheart.”
    “Not my sweetheart, sweetheart. Strictly business. Anyway, I called him a peach. Not a sweetheart. Not that there’s a difference, semantically speaking.”
    Alena glowered at Jackie over the top of her CRT. The situation took me back to running a huge corporate enterprise, where so much precious time was wasted mediating a particular flavor of institutional conflict my friend Jason Fligh, the president of the University of Chicago, privately characterized as bitch shit.
    “You’re a smart young woman,” I said to Alena, bracing for Jackie’s snort. “You probably have a theory on what happened to Jonathan. Few knew him better. Nobody better, if you’re talking about his business.”
    Alena pulled her eyes off Jackie and refocused on me. Approvingly, as if to say, now we all know who the sensitive one is in
this
team. Erroneously. She sat back and touched the outer crust of her purple hair.
    “To me, the business here is basically research. We research companies people might want to invest in. We sell opinions. That’s really what this is all about. Opinions, not proclamations. Jonathan wasn’t a theater critic, he just told people what he could figure out about a company. That’s it. Sure, I bet some of the companies weren’t too happy about what he said, but that was their fault. And mostly, I think, the companies should all feel okay about him, because he was such a straight shooter. He told it like it was, which most of the time was pretty good for those guys. Frankly, I think hewas overall pretty optimistic, and if you look at his record, you know, how these companies ended up performing, it was pretty much the way he had it scored. Where’s the beef in that?”
    I was sitting there feeling some sort of odd warmth for Alenas simple loyalty and frank appraisal of her boss when Jackie went and spoiled the mood.
    “Bullshit.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Bullshit,” she repeated. “Jonathan Eldridge was a financial adviser of the first rank. Specializing in high tech, the most volatile and capricious market segment. Billions of dollars could be made or lost through decisions based on his analysis. You talk about it like he ran a local beauty pageant.”
    Alena looked at me.
    “Is she with you?”
    “You bet, toots,” said Jackie. “Actually he’s with me.”
    “What my colleague means,” I said, as I draped an arm over Jackie’s shoulders, “is there must have been occasional disappointments felt by Jonathan’s clients when certain recommendations inevitably missed the mark. Some people might’ve had some serious losses, which might’ve caused a little rancor.”
    “He means thoroughly pissed off,” said Jackie, helpfully.
    “I know what he means. Yeah, sure, not everybody loved everything we did. Though only a couple had a beef. People like Ivor Fleming.”
    “Ivor Fleming?”
    “Investor. Nasty stubby little jerk from up island. Made it in scrap metal, for Chrissakes. Pissed off at the world, I think. Anyway, only guy Jonathan ever fired. You know, stopped working for. Said he caused too much stress. You got that right.”
    “Lost money on Jonathan’s recommendations?” I asked.
    Alena looked down at her CRT, then off toward the one lonely, dirty window in the lightless office.
    “Yeah, though I couldn’t entirely hundred percent tell you why. I managed the office stuff, ran the trades, made nice nice to clients when Jonathan was out of town, did research online. I said I handled everything, but there were things Jonathan did on his own. He didn’t exactly report to me on every conversation. I usually knew what was what, but I wasn’t always privy.”
    Which hurt her feelings, obviously. Even Jackie let a little sound of sympathy escape