Bob Knowlton at Simmons Securities

Bob Knowlton at Simmons Securities (I)

Bob Knowlton was sitting alone in the conference room of Simmons Securities. The

rest of his group had left. One of the secretaries had stopped and talked for a while

about her husband's enrollment in graduate school and had finally gone home. Bob,

alone on the floor, slid a little farther down in his chair, looking with satisfaction at the

results of the first computer simulation of the newest Millenium derivative.

He liked to stay after the others had gone. His appointment as project head was still

new enough to give him a deep sense of pleasure. His eyes were on the graphs before

him, but in his mind, he could hear Dr. Alan Jerrold, the director of research, saying

again, "There's one thing about this place you can bank on. The sky is the limit for a

person who can produce!" Knowlton felt again the tingle of happiness and

embarrassment. Well, dammit, he said to himself, he had produced. He wasn't kidding

anybody. He had come to Simmons Securities two years ago. While testing some

proposed derivatives, he had stumbled on the idea behind the Millenium family of

derivatives, and the rest just happened. Jerrold had been enthusiastic: A separate project

had been set up for further research and development of these derivatives, and he had

gotten the job of managing it. The whole sequence of events still seemed a little

miraculous to Knowlton.

He shrugged out of the reverie and bent determinedly over the sheets of paper when

he heard someone come into the room behind him. He looked up expectantly; Jerrold

often stayed late himself and now and then dropped in for a chat. This always made the

day's end especially pleasant for Bob. It wasn't Jerrold. The man who had come in was a

stranger. He was tall, thin, and rather dark. He wore steel-rimmed glasses and had a

very wide leather belt with a large brass buckle. Lucy remarked later that it was the kind

of belt the Pilgrims must have worn.

The stranger smiled and introduced himself. "I'm Simon Fester. Are you Bob

Knowlton?" Bob said yes, and they shook hands. "Dr. Jerrold said I might find you in.

We were talking about your work, and I'm very much interested in what you are doing."

Bob waved to a chair.

Fester didn't seem to belong in any of the standard categories of visitors: customer,

visiting fireman, stockholder. Bob pointed to the sheets on the table. "There are the

preliminary results of a test we're running. We have a new derivative by the tail and

we're trying to understand its properties. It's not finished, but I can show you the tests

we’ve run."

He stood up, but Fester was deep in the graphs. After a moment, he looked up with

an odd grin. "These look like plots of a Jennings surface. I've been playing around with

some autocorrelation functions of surfaces -- you know that stuff." Bob, who had no

idea what Fester was referring to, grinned back and nodded, and immediately felt

uncomfortable. "Let me show you the test software," he said, and he started the

program.

After Fester left, Knowlton slowly put the graphs away, feeling vaguely annoyed.

Then, as if he had made a decision, he quickly locked up and took the long way out so

that he would pass Jerrold's office. But the office was locked. Knowlton wondered

whether Jerrold and Fester had left together.

The next morning, Knowlton dropped into Jerrold's office, mentioned that he had

talked with Fester, and asked who he was.

"Sit down for a minute," Jerrold said. "I want to talk to you about him. What do you

think of him?" Knowlton replied truthfully that he thought Fester was very bright and

probably very competent. Jerrold looked pleased. 2

"We're taking him on," he said. "He's had a very good background in a number of

complex securities, and he seems to have ideas about the problems we're tackling here."

Knowlton nodded in agreement, instantly wishing that Fester would not be placed with

him.

"I don't know yet where he will finally land," Jerrold continued, "but he seems

interested in what you are doing. I thought he might spend a little time with you by way

of getting started." Knowlton nodded thoughtfully. "If his interest in your work

continues, you can add him to your group."

"Well, he seemed to have some good ideas even without knowing exactly what we

are doing," Knowlton answered. "I hope he stays; we'd be glad to have him."

Knowlton walked back to the Millenium group with mixed feelings. He told

himself that Fester would be good for the group. He was no dunce; he'd produce.

Knowlton thought again of Jerrold's promise when he had promoted him -- "the man

who produces gets ahead in this outfit." The words seemed to carry the overtones of a

threat now.

Fester didn't appear until mid afternoon that day. He explained that he had had a

long lunch with Jerrold, discussing his joining the Millenium group. "Yes," said

Knowlton, "I talked with Jerry this morning about it, and we both thought you might

work with us for a while."

Fester smiled in the same knowing way that he had smiled when he mentioned the

Jennings surfaces. "I'd like to," he said.

Knowlton introduced Fester to the other members of the Millenium group. Fester

and Link, the group's mathematician, hit it off well and spent the rest of the afternoon

discussing a method for analyzing patterns that Link had been worrying over for the last

month.

It was 10:00 when Knowlton finally left the office that night. He had waited almost

eagerly for the end of the day to come -- when they would all be gone and he could sit

in the quiet rooms, relax, and think it over. "Think what over?" he asked himself. He

didn't know. Shortly after 8:30 p.m., they had almost all gone except Fester, and what

followed was almost a duel. Knowlton was annoyed that he was being cheated out of

his quiet period and finally resentfully determined that Fester should leave first.

Fester was sitting

...