and smoked weed a lot. I know, because I did it with him. Those things didn’t make him violent. They just made him sleepy.”
“Which would seem to jibe with him sleeping through everything that night,” said Blum.
“So you two weren’t with them that night?” said Pine.
Myron said nothing. Pine looked at Britta.
She said, “I think we were out that night, Lee. I remember the next day like it was yesterday. But the night before, no. But we weren’t over at your parents’, I know that.”
Pine looked back at Myron. “Anything to add to that? You seem to have a good memory.”
“Nothing to add. What’s your next move? You talking to everyone who knew your family and who’re still here?”
“Yes. That includes Jack Lineberry. I understand that you two have built a lucrative career together.”
“Jack makes most of the money, but we’ve done okay, too. I’m just a computer guy. He does all the selling and schmoozing. He’s good at that. Always has been. Even back in the bauxite mining days.”
“So, algorithms?” said Pine.
“More accurately, automated trading programs. Some of it is just to move large blocks of investments efficiently and for lower cost. Another side of it is to invest via computer programs so you can boost your returns. They call that black box trading. Complicated math formulas and hyperfast computer networks to execute on the strategies flowing therefrom. If it can see the right pattern in the movements of financial markets, just the slightest ripple, it can make a huge difference. That’s why pretty much the entire financial market is automated. It’s a race to the bottom, really, when you think about it. It has improved market liquidity, but it also contributed to the ‘flash crash’ in 2010. But computers don’t have emotions, so when the market plummets, the computers bring us back faster than if humans were calling the shots. But still, it’s a rigged system.”
“Meaning the little guys get screwed?” said Pine.
He glanced at her, his furry eyebrows twitching. “In the financial markets, the little guys always get screwed. That’s how the system is designed, because it’s designed by the big boys. And they like to keep the gold away from the rabble, meaning everybody else.”
“Do you have to keep changing the algorithms?” asked Pine.
“Absolutely. The spoils do not go to the complacent. They go to the hypervigilant. And since pretty much everyone has the same sort of algorithms firing away, the competition is fierce. Anyone who knows how to do Python code, for example, can execute algorithmic trading. It keeps me and my team jumping. But that’s why Britta and I can afford a place like this. People like me are in great demand. But the only reason for that is the system got greedy and decided to go with technology over humans.”
“But you’re a human,” Blum pointed out.
“Right, but, for example, a couple years ago Goldman Sachs fired around six hundred traders and replaced them with a couple hundred computer engineers to oversee the automated trading programs. Lots of other places have followed suit. And it’s not just the financial sector, pretty much all sectors are becoming automated. I see people with a lot of free time on their hands in the future. They just won’t have any money to do anything. The Silicon Valley billionaires know it’s coming. That’s why so many of them are calling for a guaranteed national income for everyone. But they’re not doing it out of benevolence, at least most of them aren’t.”
“Why then?” asked Blum.
“They need people to buy the crap they’re selling and, more important, they don’t want the rabble coming over the walls of their estates and butchering them.”
“Really, Myron, I doubt it will come to that,” admonished Britta.
“Then you’d be wrong.”
“Do you work here or at an office?” asked Blum.
“I have my office here.”
“Could we see it?” asked Pine.
“Why?” he asked sharply. “It can’t have anything to do with what happened all those years ago.”
“You never know.”
“I don’t let people in there as a rule.”
“There are always exceptions to rules. And in an environment where you obviously spend a lot of time, something might occur to you that wouldn’t in any other place. I would really appreciate it if you would. Maybe for old times’ sake?”
Myron looked put out, glanced at Britta, finally shrugged, turned, and walked out of the room.
Britta chose to stay behind, so Myron led Pine and Blum down a sleek hallway and up a curving set of stairs made of zebra wood