Boston Noir

“No.” God no. This was supposed to have been the best day of her life. After picking the St. John suit, she had fallen into bed and actually slept for two hours. Waking refreshed, she had decided to forego the planned cab ride and walk to work instead. She usually walked for the exercise, but today she had noticed things. People in soft pants and flip-flops out on the Comm. Ave. Mall with their dogs, yawning and standing by with their baggies until there was a pile to clean up. The flowers in the Public Garden. Even the accordion-playing busker on the Common sounded good to her. She’d seen him there often, sitting on the same low brick wall under a tree, squeezing out sad French ballads, collecting tips from the well-dressed army of posers and wannabes making its weary way to the Financial District for another day in the MUTUAL FUND CAPITAL OF THE WORLD! She had never given him a penny. She didn’t believe in rewarding mediocrity. Also, he smelled.

But today she had admired his work ethic. Today she had slipped a twenty into his collection cup because everything was good and everyone was kind and even living in Boston wasn’t so bad because today, after six long years in this second-rate backwater town, she would be named Managing Director. She would cross the magic line, get her ticket punched, and one day soon, get back home to New York where they would surely have to take her seriously now. Best of all, she would never again have to explain to Mother why Bo, James, and Danny had made MD before her. Sure they were two, four, and seven-and-a-half years younger, but they were also young, strapping boys from the finest business schools and the investment industry had no place for smart females-or any females-who didn’t answer phones, fetch coffee, or give blowjobs to important clients.

“Sloan?”

“What?”

“Am I talkin’ to myself here?” Officer Jimmy is making his point, but with a light touch, and she wishes she had learned how to be that way.

“You were saying it makes a difference if I hadn’t planned on shooting Trevor today.”

“Exactly. That it wasn’t premeditated. We can work with that, and we can do some things here so the situation doesn’t get worse than it is.”

Uh-oh. Here it comes. She knows what he’s about to say because he’s said it a hundred times already.

“The biggest thing is you got to let Beck come out.”

She breathes in deeply, pulling in the fetid and humid air that has filled the office ever since they turned off the air conditioners. As they always seem to, her grinding molars find the scar tissue inside her left cheek and the taste in her mouth changes. She’s bleeding.

“Why is everyone so concerned about Beck? Beck is fine. Beck is more than fine. He got promoted today. Or was it yesterday? He gets to be an MD, and do you know how long it took him? A year. I’ve been here six years and I’ve been up for MD the past four. Do you know who the biggest alpha generator around here is?”

“You?”

“For the past two years.”

“What’s an alpha?”

“Alpha generation…it’s just a way of showing who earns the most for the firm, who the best stock picker is, and it’s me. Do you know what they told me last year? ‘We can’t promote you because you’re too volatile. Everyone’s afraid of you.’ And the year before that? ‘We can’t promote you because you’re too quiet. No one ever knows what you’re thinking.’”

“Take it easy. I’m not trying to upset you. I’m trying to get you to think through this thing logically with me. People will be coming to work in a few hours. You and me, we have to be done and out of here by then.”

She takes a turn too fast and nearly bangs into the corner of Trevor’s desk. She uncrosses her arms and takes her fists from her armpits. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be strung along year after year, to get your hopes up and then get told…to have to sit and be told all the things that are wrong with you?”

“No, I don’t know what it’s like to be in your position-your work position or the one you’re in now. But I do know what it’s like to get passed over. I got passed over for this job six times.”

He’s saying all the right words. He’s saying he understands because that’s his job. But she hears it in his tone. You stupid bitch, he’s thinking. You had everything-the money, the Back Bay condo, the friggin’ horse farm in Millbrook. The shopping trips to London. And you do this? This is what you do? You stupid, spoiled rich little bitch.

She grabs the earpiece, holds it directly in front of her mouth. “I made two and a half million dollars last year. What did you make?” Hits the button to end the call, and just like that Jimmy Tarbox is out of her head.