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 at the conference table reading, and Knowlton was sitting at his

desk in the little glass-enclosed cubby he used during the day when he needed to be

undisturbed. Fester had gotten the last year's progress reports out and was studying them

carefully. The time dragged. Knowlton doodled on a pad, the tension growing inside

him. What the hell did Fester think he was going to find in the reports?

Knowlton finally gave up and they left the office together. Fester took several of

the reports with him to study in the evening. Knowlton asked him if be thought the

reports gave a clear picture of the Millenium group's activities.

"They're excellent," Fester answered with obvious sincerity. "They're not only good

reports; what they report is damn good, too!" Knowlton was surprised at the relief he

felt, and grew almost jovial as he said good-night.

Driving home, Knowlton felt more optimistic about Fester's presence in the

Millenium group. He had never fully understood the analysis that Link was attempting.

If anything was wrong with Link's approach, Fester would probably spot it. "And if I'm

any judge," he murmured, "he won't be especially diplomatic about it."

He described Fester to his wife, who was amused by the broad leather belt and

brass buckle.

"It's the kind of belt that Pilgrims must have worn," she laughed. 3

"I'm not worried about how he holds his pants up," he laughed with her. "I'm afraid

that he's the kind that just has to make like a genius twice each day. And that can be

pretty rough on the group."

Knowlton had been asleep for several hours when he was jerked awake by the

telephone. He realized it had rung several times. He swung off the bed muttering about

damn fools and telephones. It was Fester. Without any excuses, apparently oblivious of

the time, he plunged into an excited recital of how Link's patterning problem could be

solved.

Knowlton covered the mouthpiece to answer his wife's stage-whispered "Who is

it?" "It's the genius," replied Knowlton.

Fester, completely ignoring the fact that it was 2:00 in the morning, went on in a

very excited way to start in the middle of an explanation of a completely new approach

to certain of the Millenium groups problems that he had stumbled on while analyzing

past simulations. Knowlton managed to put some enthusiasm in his own voice and

stood there, half-dazed and very uncomfortable, listening to Fester

...