Teddy Wayne - Kapitoil

The ballroom was littered with men in tuxedos and females in black dresses but no fur coats like there were at Mr. Schrub’s luxury box in Yankee Stadium. There were also many waiters carrying food, and since I didn’t see Mr. or Mrs. Schrub, I ate some stuffed vegetarian grape leaves.

Then I saw Mrs. Schrub in the middle of a cluster. She waved for me to come over. “Karim, I’m so glad you could make it,” she said. She introduced me to the five people with her, who were all her age or older. “Karim is from Qatar, and he’s worked his way up to a top position at Schrub Equities in just a few months. Derek says he’s one of his most gifted employees.”

Even though Mr. Schrub made a similar statement at the Yankees game, I didn’t know he had said this, which sounded much more impressive because he said it to his wife and not to his associate. The only thing that bothered me is that she pronounced it “Ka-tar” instead of “cutter,” which most Americans do, so I am typically careless, but I had used the correct pronunciation with her several times in Greenwich.

Two of the men in the circle also worked in finance at other firms, and soon we launched our own conversation. I was surprised that they wanted my opinion, especially on the 1,000-mile view of e-commerce.

“There are golden opportunities now,” I said, “but I believe investors are overestimating the value of the Internet. At the end of the day, consumers still sometimes prefer the human interaction that machines cannot deliver.”

Two other men joined us, and they continued asking for my theories, and soon I forgot why I was at the fund-raiser. When a waiter brought us a tray of small pastries containing cream, I took one without thinking, and it was so delicious that I remembered it was haraam but I couldn’t restrict myself and I consumed two more.

I was talking so much about my ideas that I was unprepared when one of the men, who was the senior member of our cluster and ran a rival hedge fund which was less powerful than Schrub, said, “Your boy Karim is giving away all your secrets,” and Mr. Schrub placed his hand on the back of my neck and said, “Not all, I hope,” and winked at me and compressed his hand slightly harder than necessary.

I didn’t know how to approach asking to speak to him privately, so I didn’t say anything as he greeted the other men. They all moved back a few inches to let him center himself.

“I take it Karim’s been tutoring all you dinosaurs on millennial advancements?” he asked. “This kid is the future. He’s got brains and vision.” I had to bite the inside of my lip so that I wouldn’t smile.

Then he said, “Just goes to show, being smart and hardworking still counts for something in America. You don’t need to come from a wealthy family or go to an Ivy, or even have a business degree.” Even though he was overall complimenting me, I quickly felt less like a VIP again, and I wondered if all the men now thought my previous ideas lacked value because of my poor qualifications.

Soon a female started speaking on a microphone. She thanked everyone for coming and spoke about her organization’s goals. One of Mr. Schrub’s friends, who was the youngest and whose name was Mr. Slagle, motioned for a waiter. The waiter was a Mexican man who waited as Mr. Slagle selected three dates contained inside bacon. After he consumed them he had a remainder of three toothpicks, and since we weren’t near a trash bin or a table and the waiter had left, he dropped them on the floor.

Mr. Schrub whispered to his friends, “Remind me who we’re giving our money away to for this one?”

Mr. Slagle said, “Kosovo.”

“Kosovo,” Mr. Schrub said. “It’s beautiful there. They don’t need any money.”

Mr. Slagle laughed. Mr. Schrub looked at him. “You find that humorous, Dick?” His tone of voice was as serious as when he yelled at his sons.

Mr. Slagle’s eyes rotated to the others. “Sure,” he said.

“Well, it’s not,” Mr. Schrub said. “My great-grandfather was from there.”

His friends looked uncomfortable. “Hey, I’m sorry, Derek,” Mr. Slagle said.

“You’re sorry?” Mr. Schrub asked.

Mr. Slagle looked at the others as if he required help. “Honestly, I don’t know what to say,” he said. “I thought you were making a joke.”

The female finished her speech and the crowd applauded, but Mr. Schrub remained silent. I wanted to say something to help Mr. Slagle, but I didn’t know what I could say and of course I was afraid.

Then Mr. Schrub said, “I’m just joking, Dick,” and he contacted him on his shoulder and smiled. “What do you take me for, some kind of monster?”

Mr. Schrub laughed and then Mr. Slagle did and the other men followed, and the tension around them deleted. However, my muscles still felt restricted, as if I were exercising with weights. It reminded me of when Dan pretended he had cancer.

The others began talking again, and Mr. Schrub seemed to be in a positive mood, so I said to him quietly, “I am ready to discuss the contract.”

He looked at me and said, “Let’s go to my car.” He told his friends he would see them later, and he called Patrick to bring the car around. We exited the ballroom together. Walking with him was again parallel to walking through the restaurant: People pretended not to observe him, but they were all doing it.

We had to wait a minute on the street for the car, and I didn’t know what to say, and Mr. Schrub said nothing either, and I again felt a lack of confidence and wished I hadn’t told him I was ready to discuss the contract, but now I was there and I had to continue my plan.

The limo arrived and we got inside and Mr. Schrub told Patrick to drive us around the area for a few minutes. Mr. Schrub raised the internal divider between us and Patrick, and the world outside muted. The windows were also cloudy from the combination of interior heat and exterior cold, so it was as if we were contained inside a small egg with no sounds and few lights as we drove down 5th Ave.

“So?” he asked. It is difficult to proceed when someone launches a conversation with that.

I commanded myself to be strong and said, “I have finished the epidemiology paper. But I am not signing the contract, because I believe it transfers ownership to you.”

The lights of the luxury stores and their neon Christmas decorations passed by our dark windows in undefined shapes. “It transfers ownership so we can improve it,” he said. “You still get a healthy raise and plenty of stock. You’re not getting a raw deal here in any way.”

“It is not about the money,” I said. “Kapitoil has already independently outpaced quants revenues from all of last year by 3 %. Possibly this can help people.”

“You already are helping people,” he said. “This is not a zero-sum game, Karim. Do you know how many people in our office would be looking for jobs now if not for Kapitoil? Or how many other people it’s created opportunities for?” I didn’t say anything. “Look, I want to help people, too. But I’m a realist. The program might work for predicting the spread of diseases. But it definitely works for predicting oil futures. You don’t cut open the goose that lays golden eggs.”

“I understand I am helping some people,” I said. “But Kapitoil is a zero-sum game. It leverages problems elsewhere and transforms a loss into financial gain.”

He shook his head. “If we don’t do it, someone else will. Maybe you wish otherwise, but those are the rules of the game. If you can’t play by them — well, then, you’re not man enough to be in this business. And I had you pegged wrong.”

The car stopped quickly, and to stabilize myself I placed my hand on the window and deleted a section of the moisture. It was interesting how by making something clear I simultaneously left a mark. Through the small hole was St. Patrick’s Cathedral and its two tall towers in the front that looked like antennae.