Looking forward to our lunch. XXOO
He was about to send a reply when Ashley buzzed him, and he picked up.
“Mr. Rockingham is on the line.”
Treadwell knew what the old man wanted. He’d been expecting the call. He picked up. “Hi, Keith. What’s up?”
“Not our stock, I can tell you that much. The traders are underpricing us.”
“That’s something that happens,” Treadwell said.
“We paid you good money, goddamnit. What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing can be done. It’s the bad news from China that’s hitting everyone hard—not just you. But you have a solid company, and your stock, along with just about everyone else’s, will be back as soon as the craziness has passed. Happens all the time. Part of the business.”
“That’s what your asshole in the blue jacket told me. Name of Schneider.”
“Seymour is giving you good advice; he knows what he’s talking about because he’s been on the floor forever. Patience.”
“Patience? Do you know what the bastard told me?”
Treadwell had a good idea. Seymour was a colorful character. People either loved or hated him, but everyone respected his opinions. “No.”
“He told me to take off all my clothes and run around the floor telling everyone how good my company was. I want you to fire the bastard!”
“He’s a trader, and they’re all like that. But he’s one of our major assets, so there’s no way I can fire him. How about we do dinner tomorrow night? My nickel.”
“I’m going home this afternoon. But Heather tells me that you and she are having lunch today.”
“She wants some business advice, and I’m happy to oblige. It’ll help your bottom line in the long run.”
“I’ve heard you’re a ladies’ man.”
“I’ve been married for ten years, Keith. Happily. And breaking bread is part of my job.”
“How about if I tag along with you two?”
“Fine with me, but we’ll be talking about marketing, not the stock market.”
“I may put in a word or two, but I’ll let you two talk,” Rockingham said, a different edge to his voice now. The bastard was old but no less shrewd.
“Listen, whatever you and your daughter decide is fine with me.”
Ashley buzzed.
“I have someone on the other line,” Treadwell said, and he broke the connection.
“Mr. Schneider is on the line,” Ashley said.
Treadwell picked up. “Seymour, how is trading going?”
“Up and down. I expect that Rockingham is going to call you sometime this morning.”
“Just hung up with him. ‘Run around the floor with no clothes’?”
“It’s a wonder the idiot ever managed to put together a decent business,” Schneider said. “But we might have a bigger problem coming our way.” He summarized the high points of his talk with Betty Ladd. “She’s pissed off, and she’ll do anything to stick it to you.”
“Poor loser.”
“She’s head of the NYSE, and she can make bad stuff happen, you know this. If we didn’t tell our clients to take their proprietary capital and cash out like we’ve been doing, we could end up doing serious time.”
Less than twenty-four hours … “I’ll take care of Betty. She and I are old friends.”
Schneider chuckled. “If you say so, Reid. In the meantime, what the hell is ‘abacus’?”
Time suddenly stopped, and Treadwell felt as if he’d been kicked in his solar plexus. It took him a moment to get ahold of himself. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s the thing with beads that you can use to add and subtract. They teach it in fourth grade or something.”
“On the floor this morning, Julia said something about an abacus that was going to put the brakes on Rockingham, or something like that, and you told her to shut up.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Seymour.”
“Well, I heard the two of you.”
“I’ll be seeing her later today, maybe she can jog my memory,” Treadwell said. “Maybe it had to do with our earlier conversation about teaching Rockingham how to add and subtract before he got himself involved in the market.”