“All fair points.” Dave lowers his eyes. “But, don’t underestimate these guys, I’m warning you. If these goons walk out the door with their Knicks tickets, then you have no order flow, it’s as simple as that. That would take years to rebuild. So play nice, or it’s gonna hit you where it hurts, you understand?”

“I completely understand,” I say.

* * * *

I hit the T22 light three more times, just to be obnoxious. I hate brokers.

“Hey.”

“Hey what?” said Tod.

“I assume you saw Weber last night.”

“Yeah. It was kind of weird.”

“What happened?”

“As you know, Boone Dog covers these guys, so he was there, of course, with C.N. and Weber. Oh, and the New Girl.”

“Boone brought her?”

“Yeah. It was fine.”

“So?”

“So it was fucking depressing, man, C.N. is going through a divorce, his wife cheated on him, he’s got four kids, it’s a huge mess.”

“Oh, man.”

“It’s actually worse than that. He’s like, broke, or something.”

“How can a guy like that be broke?”

“I don’t know, it was unclear, he was getting drunk pretty fast.”

“How was Weber?”

“That’s the weird thing. You know what he’s like. He’s full of ideas, all the time, and he literally just sat there and didn’t say a word.”

“Is he losing money?”

“Dude, you see his trades, how can he be losing money? He’s been doing nothing but buying upside calls like a fucking jerk for the last two years.”

“Well, is there something wrong with him? Is he on something?”

“Yo.”

“I’m just saying.”

“The guy that doesn’t even drink when we go out? I doubt it.”

“Well, good, I hope there’s something wrong with him. That guy is fucking toxic.”

Tod laughs. “Yeah, ha. Fuck that guy.”

I crack open another Diet Coke.

This is Number Three.

“What else happened,” I asked Tod.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“It doesn’t seem like nothing happened.”

“I told you, C.N. and I went toe-to-toe for a while, the guy really needed to drink, so I was there and hung out with him.”

“And what happened to Weber?” I take a sip of the Diet Coke.

“We put him in a car.”

“You put him in a car and sent him home? After the guy doesn’t say anything all throughout dinner? By himself? For all you know the guy could have gone home and stuck his head in the oven.”

Tod laughs. “I thought that’s what you wanted, right?”

“I was kidding. It is good to have that guy’s flow. It’s good information.”

“So maybe the sales guys are worth more than $40 million?”

I ignore this. “What about the squeg?”

“She’s not a squeg.”

“Very touchy. You don’t even know what a squeg is. Maybe it’s something good.”

“It doesn’t sound good. She’s cool, she hung out with me and C.N. for a while.”

“A 22-year-old female weirdo gets drunk with two filthy animals like yourselves.”

“She’s not a weirdo!”

“She wears black fingernail polish. So what happened?”