"Right. So naturally you bought call options on the Blue Chips, locking in a cheap price just before Noda's money boosted them into the clouds."
"Safe and simple. Of course, some traders go for index options, S&P 500*s and indicators like that, but that's always been too airy-fairy for me. When the market's set to head up, I just buy calls. Heavy leverage. No risk."
I concurred. "Nothing too abstruse."
"The thing of it is, I'm more comfortable dealing with reality," he went on. "I like to kick the tires, check under the hood, so that index crap's not my style. Like I always say, if you've got hold of something you can't figure out how to drink, drive, or screw, maybe you oughta ask yourself what you're doing with it."
A pragmatic criterion, I agreed. 'Though it's rather a pity you didn't cut me in on the play. I could have used the money."
"Walton," he replied, "it downright pains me to have to be the one breakin' the news to you, but you could have used the money more than you think. Whose bank balances do you figure I've been using to test out that platinum program?"
"In the spirit of intellectual curiosity, Jim Bob, does our new system for blowing capital show promise?"
"From the looks of my early churning, I'd say you got yourself a winner."
The fucker. How in hell did he get access to my money? I decided to just ask, whereupon he obligingly explained.
"Well, we're hooked into every bank computer in town." He was unblinking, a drugged-out zombie. "Account numbers aren't exactly a state secret, given the right phone call. Same goes for trust funds."