Free Top Producer by Norb Vonnegut

Charlie Kelemen was your friend.”
     
“How’d you hear?”
     
“Kurtz told me. Grove, I’m really sorry.”
     
“Forget it, Patty. No harm, no foul.”
     
“Always the Southern gentleman,” she said. We both smiled. Cheer replaced remorse in her brown eyes, and our truce was complete.
     
“Lady Goldfish” may be too harsh.
     
“What do you like in these markets?” Patty asked, changing the topic.
     
“Bonds.”
     
“Besides bonds.”
     
“BRICs,” I replied, using Wall Street’s acronym for the fast-growing economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China.
     
“I like Jack Oil,” she countered, eager to weigh in with her opinion. The company sold high-tech drill bits to oil producers like Exxon and traded under the ticker symbol “JACK.”
     
Taking the bait, I said, “It’s a good company.”
     
Setting the hook, she replied, “And I heard you cover Jumping JJ.”
     
Josef Jaworski, the CEO of Jack Oil, was my biggest client. He became “Jumping JJ” during his company’s initial public offering. When one of Fidelity’s market mavens nodded off during a road show presentation, Jaworski jumped up on the conference table and danced an Irish jig to rouse the somnolent investor. The nickname Jumping JJ soon spread through money management circles.
     
JJ’s offering worked beyond everyone’s wildest expectations, including his own. He had already diversified half his position in Jack and still owned 2.3 million shares worth $190 million at $83 per share. Not bad for an emigrant from Poland.
     
“Who told you Jaworski is a client?” I immediately suspected Kurtz, our boss, the department’s “Monthly Nut.”
     
“JJ did.”
     
I almost coughed up my liver.
     
“We met at a party last weekend,” Patty explained. She leaned in close, too close, close enough to share buttonholes, close enough to flash her plastic surgeon’s handiwork. “We hit it off.”
     
“How is JJ?” I asked, trying to sound calm but feeling my heart pump faster.
     
“I bet I can help you with him.” There it was, the beginning of a fight. Lady Goldfish was angling to share the economics on my biggest client.
     
“We have a good working relationship,” I said, trying to defuse her interest, “but let me think about it.” It was important that she save face. There were no rewards for fighting with Patty.
     
“You know where to find me, O’Rourke,” she called out breezily on her way back to Estrogen Alley.
     
When Patty was out of earshot, I called JJ to assess the damage. JumpingJJ and I enjoyed an excellent rapport. But we disagreed on some basic investment strategies, like the need for safety in his portfolio. He found bond discussions worse than scraping dead flies off flypaper. It was possible that Patty had sabotaged my market advice. It was also possible I needed another axiom.
     
Four: Top producers are paranoid. Otherwise, we never become top producers.
     
“Hello,” Jumping JJ answered on the first ring. That one word signaled something was wrong. JJ never picked up the phone. Ginger, his ace assistant, screened all calls. And Jaworski’s inflection usually resonated with power, the vocal mix of sarcasm and remnants from a lingering Polish accent. Think Jack Nicholson from Warsaw.
     
Not today. That “hello” sounded limp. Now was no time to probe about Patty.
     
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
     
“Jestem udupiony,” he replied.
     
“What’s that mean?”
     
“It’s Polish for ‘I’m fucked.’ ”
     
“That’s no good.”
     
“You know Ginger, right?”
     
“Of course. How could I forget?” His personal assistant was a model of corporate productivity. She also distracted every male within fifteen feet. JJ once convened a male-only meeting on her behalf. He instructed the men of his office to stop ogling her cycki , which was Polish for “boobs.”
     
“Ginger resigned yesterday,” he said.
     
“You’re kidding.” I wondered how JJ could function