An Unlikely Series of Conversations

LAERTES Jackson showed up at the human resources office of Martin, Martin, and Moll at 10:37 on a Tuesday morning in May.

- Walter Mosley

The mid-size investment firm was located on Maiden Lane in the Wall Street area of Lower Manhattan. There was no ostentatious sign outside and only the initials MMM appeared on the legend at the entrance. Even then, just one floor, the fourteenth, was identified as housing MMM while the firm actually occupied seven contiguous floors. In the past two years MMM had been sued by various individuals and government agencies for multiple civil rights and sexual harassment violations. The CEO and several VPs had been relieved of their positions and the corporation itself had been fined millions of dollars in reparations.

The new CEO, Ms. Winsome Millerton-Pomerantz, had made a public statement vowing that the investment firm, which oversaw more than a dozen multibillion-dollar retirement funds that, either in full or in part, served public employee unions, would make a supreme effort to right the listing ship of their intentions.

Taking this intelligence to heart, Laertes decided to apply for an entry position at MMM.

Arriving at the fourteenth floor, Laertes encountered B. Chang, a young Asian woman sitting within a semi-opaque and circular azure desk.

“HR is on the twentieth floor, Mr. Jackson,” she said with a lovely red-stained smile. “Take the elevator to the right.”

On the 20th floor Clarissa Watson, a woman whose skin was even darker than Laertes’s, gave him a confused, turquoise-tinted smile, saying, “But your appointment isn’t until 1:40, Mr. Jackson.”

“I’m usually early,” Laertes said, cocking his head and smiling softly. “My father always told me to get there before your competitor because you can never tell what will be left over later on.”