The Last Hedge Read Online Free PDF Page B

the corporate ladder. This job, however, was different. Part of him felt that he was stepping off the ladder and onto the ledge. Such was the risk of working directly for a hedge fund.
    He made his way up on the elevator and into the office of the Corbin Brothers.
    He arrived at reception only to find that no one was there. The glass office door was open and he walked in. As Dylan made his way down the corridor towards the trading floor, he was surprised to find that all of the offices were empty. At his previous job, most of the offices were occupied by 7 a.m. When he arrived on the trading floor, Martha Thomas came over and approached him.
    “Good morning, Dylan.”
    “Martha, how are you?”
    Martha was a tall, stunning woman with crystal blue eyes. She was nearly six feet tall. Her jet-black hair was parted straight down the middle, leaving two well-coiffed flips on each side. On her neck sat an elegant set of pearls. She was probably in her late forties but looked no older than thirty-five.
    One of his first interviews at the firm had been with Martha. She had been with the Corbin brothers since the beginning, and was their trusted confidante, as well as their first employee. Based on her name and the slight hint of her accent, Dylan guessed that her family background was probably either Slavic or Eastern European, and that her last name, Thomas, was Anglicized. She carried herself with the elegance of an aristocrat.
    “And when do the traders get in?”
    “Oh, it depends. Around eight, sometimes eight thirty.”
    “Really? That late?”
    “It’s like a lot of things around here: very different.”
    From the way she smiled when she said this, and the way that she lingered over the last few words, it seemed implicit to Dylan that she was inviting him to read between the lines.
    “Ray is usually in by now, but got caught up on his way from the Hamptons.”
    “Well,” Dylan said. “I’ll be waiting.”
    Martha pointed towards a corner of the trading floor. “They’re setting up your computer now. It won’t take more than an hour.”
    “Sounds great.”
    Dylan made his way towards the trading terminal that had been assigned to him. It was a classic trading workstation with three computer monitors, a computer, and a speed-dial phone. The IT guy barely looked up as Dylan sat down next to him. He unpacked several of his books and his HP calculator, and removed a disk from his briefcase. Though the software at his previous firm had been proprietary, there were several models and spreadsheets he had developed on his own, and he felt that they would be useful in his new job. The IT guy looked up when he finished his job.
    “Ready to go.”
    “Thanks,” Dylan said.
    The first trader arrived fifteen minutes later. His name was Richard King. King was Corbin’s right-hand man, and supposedly one of the smartest guys on the Street.
    “Dylan Cash,” King said curtly. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
    “Good, I hope.”
    “Certainly.”
    King extended his hand stiffly, at a ninety degree angle. He was wearing a pair of perfect burgundy linen trousers, and a white-linen shirt with matching white buck shoes. His blonde pompadour was as manicured as the White House lawn, and the leather briefcase that he held from Mullholand Brothers had easily cost over one thousand dollars.
    King’s face was darkly burnished by the sun, and Dylan wondered if he had just gotten off his helicopter, a summer indulgence King apparently shared with a fellow group of traders on the Street. The whirlybird picked them up each morning in Southampton and dropped them off near Wall Street. King pretended to be “hush hush” about his morning commute, but from Dylan had been told, it was the worst kept secret in the office. When King passed by the receptionist she jokingly made a whirling motion with the tip of her index finger.
    “I take it you will be trading soon?”
    “I hope so. That’s what I do.”
    “Well, that sounds good.