Page 58 of The Oligarch's Daughter

Paul nodded. “About as expected.”

“You gotta skate to where the puck is going. This isn’t some white-shoe private equity fund where the most important thing is to join the right country club and talk college football, be a bro. People who work for Galkin are far more analytical. And more socially awkward.”

Paul smiled, sipped his beer. They talked for another five minutes or so. The waiter brought a second round. As Chad finished his first beer and went on to his second, he got a little looser. He started telling jokes. Most of them weren’t very funny. “Hey,” he said after a while, “someone just sent me a Russian oligarch Advent calendar. Every time you open a window, an oligarch falls out.”

Paul laughed politely. He’d already heard that one. “You warned me ‘the walls have ears.’ Are we discouraged from making jokes about our boss?”

“Off campus is safe, but definitely watch it in the office.” Chad was seated at a right angle to Paul. His eyes slid to the side to meet Paul’s. “So you’re married to the boss’s daughter.”

There it was.

“Ummmm . . . well, not married, technically—we’re engaged. Who told you?”

“Everyone knows.”

Paul’s eyebrows shot up. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but it was still kind of annoying. “Arkady wants me to keep it on the DL. Plus, I’m going to be treated like everyone else, so.”

“Well, good luck with that. Like that’ll happen. You’re the boss’s son-in-law. He’ll never fire you.”

Paul shook his head, didn’t know what to say. Was that true? How would he know? “Why are we the Island of Misfit Toys anyway? How so? If we’re all ‘mental athletes’?”

“Everyone here screwed up in some way in their old job.”

“Really? What’d you do?”

“What’d I do? At my last job, we were taking a company public, and I decided to skim off a little cream for one of my clients.”

“How?”

“I arranged for him to invest in a pre-IPO funding round. Then I did a sort of end run. Arranged for him to evade the lockup and sell his shares immediately post-IPO. Made a shitload of money for the client.”

“But broke the rules in the process. You get fired?”

“Oh, yeah. And no one would hire me. But Galkin didn’t mind.”

“Was he the client?”

Chad gave a slow smile but didn’t answer.

“All the other hires did something similar?”

“Ones that I know about, yeah. Jake did a penny stock trade on the side without telling his firm. His firm found out and fired him.”

“For doing a deal in penny stocks?”

“A deal based on inside information he got working for the firm. Totally illegal.”

All these screwups, Paul noticed, were ethical ones. Everyone here was ethically challenged. They hadn’t lost money, though. Galkin wouldn’t hire anyone who’d lost money. He would just hire cheats, apparently.Everyone except me, Paul thought. He hadn’t fucked up. The opposite: He’d pulled off something impressive. And he hadn’t done it by cheating.

“I thought I was dead meat,” said Chad. “I got no callbacks. I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do. And then Galkin hired me.”

“So what’s the catch?”

“You keep your mouth shut. And don’t fuck up again.”

“I see.”

“Galkin’s a fascinating guy,” Chad said. “What’s he like at home, among family?”

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