Broker Jim
by
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I got to the office at four in the morning, two hours earlier than usual. On my desk was a framed snapshot of me with my mother out in a cotton field, a picture taken forty-eight years ago. I had always tried to follow her advice, be honest. Maybe that was what caused my agitation now. I paced the floor around my big teakwood desk, a desk that overpowered my office, somewhat like LSW dominated the region’s local securities business. We dealt in the securities of small companies and helped to make them big. Resting on one corner of my desk was a hand-tooled leather plaque, placed there by my fourteen-year-old stepson, David, on Father’s Day, when he was ten years old. It read "James Bradley, Big Cheese." It sometimes embarrassed me, but I was too proud of him to remove it. It was the file on the other corner that made me uncomfortable. I sat down and glanced up from the stack of paperwork on my desk. I met the eyes of Sonada, my wife, looking down at me from her portrait on the wall. How could I have brought her to this? She didn’t even know about my problem. I hadn’t told her. On top of my paperwork was the latest copy of Northwest Financial News. Chrispina must have put it there after I left yesterday. A glance, and I saw that the paper had published an article on me. There was a big photograph of me sitting at this desk, captioned "Local Securities Czar." There were laudatory quotes from Blackhard of Blackhard & Funkelstein, the firm that handled most of our legal and prospectus work. I knew the article was coming out but had not expected it so soon. They commented on our modest headquarters, located in a well kept older, eight-story building. We were on the sixth floor. My brokers had been telling me over and over again, "Let’s move to the new Financial Building. We need a more prestigious office. We’ve outgrown this dump; let’s move." Local Securities of Washington had started right here. My first office rent had been only $400 a month. When Nixon bombed Cambodia and our markets had all but dried up, these people trusted us. When our building manager saw me struggling to make rent payments, he said, "Don’t worry, Jim, we trust you." He let the rent slide a couple of times until we could catch up. Now we rented most of the floor and paid $10,000 a month. He was our friend when we needed him. These brokers could protest all they wanted, but I wasn’t about to move. You stick with the people who don’t let you down. At six-thirty I heard my traders across the hall open up for the day’s business. ******************** Rosco Tallon’s smooth insurance inspections that Thursday seemed so easy. I was ready to tackle them myself Saturday. After collections, and a quick coffee with Ralph, I headed to the Eastside, where my cases were located. I felt shy to have to ask strangers all these personal questions. Dudley Roundhass, an auto mechanic, was my first insurance applicant. His home was in Bellevue, a suburban and rapidly growing community east of Seattle. The Bellevue Chamber of Commerce grated at being called Boeing’s bedroom. Some of its members challenged the reference and that they would change all that, maybe someday surpass Seattle. Mr. Roundhass was not home, and neither were his neighbors on each side of his house. If this was the way I would find it on Saturday, it would be a hungry business at only two thirty-five a case. When I knocked at the third house, a wisp of a dried-up old woman answered the door. "Good afternoon, I’m Jim Bradley with Seattle Credit Reviewers." "What’re you doing over here? Don’t you have enough deadbeats over in Seattle to keep you busy? Why bother our fine Eastside folks?" "I’m not in the credit collection business. I do insurance inspections. Your neighbor, Dudley Roundhass, has applied for some insurance and to get it approved, we need to do an inspection." "How much is he applying for?" "I’m not at liberty to say. That’s his private business." "Private information, that’s what you want from me, isn’t it?" "Not really. What I really need to know is, what kind of reputation does Mr. Roundhass have? Good? Bad?" "At what?" "Does he drink to excess? Take drugs, you know, that sort of thing." "He never said anything to me about it." "I wouldn’t expect him to, but are you aware of it?" "He keeps to his self. I’ve never seen any strange women. Fact, that’s his problem." "What do you mean?" "Lack of nookie." The old woman smiled at her boldness and my embarrassment. "Would you say he was a drinking man?" "Never saw him take a drink." "Does he smoke?" "I’ve never seen him."
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About the Book
Broker Jim, a top regional stockbroker, sits in his office, his gaze transfixed on the file sitting on the corner of his desk. His gut instinct tells him he better put the file somewhere safe. He reaches for the file just as the door opens. Three men enter, flash IDs. One of them picks up the file, leafs through it, then stuffs it into his briefcase. Jim’s firm is on top of the heap. Why are these guys grabbing files? Who called them? When they showed up, Jim’s secretary asks if they had an appointment. They said they didn’t need one. The story then falls back to Jim’s beginnings on a small Oklahoma farm during the Depression. Jim always knew he had a different destiny. His rich uncle advises him to be a stockbroker because that’s where the money is. Jim works his way through college by working in the Oregon lumber mills, then moves to Los Angeles and into a partnership with a tyrannical boss, an over-sexed and religious fanatic. Jim leaves California for Seattle. In his struggle to get ahead, he works at a variety of jobs doing insurance inspections, working for big outfits like Montcalm Manufacturing, even delivers newspapers. He finally joins a brokerage house, just when his first marriage ends in divorce. A shy and romantic guy, he has trouble connecting with women, but then comes up with a formula to help him know when he finds the right one. Eventually he forms his own brokerage firm, but after ten successful years he is stopped in his tracks. Are the SEC allegations of improprieties true or is it a conspiracy to steal his company? In the end he finds himself in a position he could never in his wildest dreams have anticipated. Broker Jim’s story is not the usual one of greed and raw ambition. Weird characters are eager to get rich by investing in the stock market, and Jim learns what makes them tick. Broker Jim mixes conflict and adventure with humor, love, and sadness. Always in the back of your mind is the question of what was in that file.