“What’s the matter with your clerk? He makes me uncomfortable,” he says.

W83 turns and looks at me, and smiles, then looks back at Richard. “He’s an assassin. He’s Jason Bourne.”

People give me a lot of shit for being such a serious motherfucker at work. I’m just not a smiley guy. I am here to do a job. So I stand in the back of the pit and scowl and all the Filipino monkeys stop swinging from the handrails and give me a wide berth, especially when I am barreling through the crowd with a handful of risk sheets. There is nothing about this that makes me unhappy, if Richard and everyone else think I am an assassin, that’s even better for when I get a badge and start trading. Pretty sure Hawaiian Shirt Dickface Guy wouldn’t throw crumpled up paper at me. I’d fucking yank his lip over his head and scoop out his eyeball with my thumb. In any case, girlfriend doesn’t know I’m the Terminator down here, off the floor I am a happy guy, especially when I am getting laid. Now all I need to do is to get paid.

I am sort of lost in thought about getting my badge and being a hero trader when Fred shows up next to me, handheld computer dangling from his neck by the strap, trade tickets falling out of the pockets of his smock. He is the kind of guy who will have the same haircut his entire life. He looks at the crowd and looks at me.

“What a fucking shitshow,” he says, looking into the sea of stinky dudes.

“Yes.”

“What would you do in here?” he asks.

“I’d buy straddles,” I say, confidently.

Fred makes the Family Feud XXX buzzing sound. “Wrong,” he says. “Try again.”

“No?”

“No. I would not buy a single option in this pit. After the spinoff, vol is going to get annihilated,” meaning that people will no longer expect big moves in COMS stock, and reduce the prices of options accordingly.

“Why?”

“Buy the rumor, sell the news. There is no possible way for this stock to live up to people’s expectations.”

Fred can be annoying sometimes, but, adjusted for how small he trades, he is the most profitable trader at JLS. He knows what the fuck he is talking about. “Are you going to tell him?” I ask, referring to W83.

“No. It’s not my responsibility. You saw TRE this morning, it’s shit or get off the pot time for this guy. JLS pays for this guy’s seat. It’s a piece of real estate. It needs a rate of return.”

This was the first time I heard anyone in the firm openly disparage W83, who was, deep down, a great guy. But the implication was that if he can’t make money in this environment, he never will.

Fred smirks. “Look on the bright side,” he says. “You might get his badge.”

* * * *

To be quite honest, girlfriend was kinda pissing me off last night.