Ridiculous. The pieces of my life came sliding back into place. I could handle them. The Kid needed a very special school, and would for years to come. He needed stability, his routine. And what did I need? I was a New Yorker and therefore spoiled beyond belief. What would bagels be like in Boise? In Bennington, pastrami comes pre-sliced in little sealed plastic packets that hang over the bacon at Foodtown. I would have to mow grass and shovel snow.
But most of all, I would miss the buzz. That sense of urgency that New York imparts to all its denizens. That knowledge that, no matter the time of day, I knew where to find the best bagel, the best pastrami. And I would know it when I found it.
I was myself again. I was fine. I had no idea what was next in my life, but I had absolutely no doubt that I could handle it. I was ready to do battle once again.
I saw Sudhir come out the front door of the Weld building and head downtown toward the subway.
“Hey! Yo, Sudhir! Over here.” I waved.
He turned, saw me, and ran.
—
MOST OF THE CORPORATE bond traders were busy loading up paper plates from a makeshift buffet of Chinese takeout spread across three trading desks. Carmine was already back at his station, his plate mounded high with dumplings, twice-cooked pork, a shrimp roll, chicken with black bean sauce, and a dollop of assorted vegetables in lobster sauce.
“Got a minute?” I said.
He didn’t look up. “I don’t have to talk to you.”
“Is that the message I’m supposed to take back upstairs? The hothead junior trader doesn’t want to talk to me.”
There had been fear in his bravado the last time we spoke. It was gone, replaced with a seething anger. “My boss says I don’t have to talk to you. You got a problem, go through channels. Now, fuck off. I’m working.”
I briefly considered making a scene, getting loud, forcing a confrontation with the arrogant little prick—and discarded the idea. Let Stockman deal with it. I was being paid to conduct a polite, professional look into accounting issues. Now I had a junior trader running from me in fear and another furiously flipping me off. Life’s too short for this shit, I thought.
“Hey, you got some problem here?”
A flashily dressed bantam had appeared at my elbow.
“Sorry?” I chose not to have heard both his words and the attitude.
The guy was mid-forties, fighting a widow’s peak and other inevitable signs of aging, with a George Hamilton tan, a sculpted comb-over, and a few thousand dollars of Armani silk. He had the narrow-shouldered, slim-hipped build that too easily develops a basketball-shaped paunch. It was just starting to show. Twice-cooked pork and white rice weren’t going to help.
“I asked you what’s your problem.”
“Who are you?”
“Who am I? You got some set. This is my department. You are bothering my trader. I told him, anyone bothers you, you tell him to go through channels. Well, channels is me!”
The scene I had hoped to avoid was unfolding for me despite my good intentions.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know you.”
“Well, I know you. You’re the crook who got off way too easy a couple of years ago. You must have ratted a dozen of your buddies to get a deal that soft. You give up a couple of your traders? Old friends?”
We had an attentive and growing audience. They were all on his side. It was not the forum I would have chosen to discuss my past. A full retreat was in order; I just wanted to do it with a few shreds of dignity.
“I was just on my way. I’ll leave you to your lunch.”
Carmine grinned up at me, enjoying my defeat. I vowed that if I ever had the chance to do him harm, I would take it. No qualms.
The bantam stepped back, overplaying his moment with a bow and a sweep of his hand. I tried not to look hurried as I passed him.
He spoke to my back. “You tell Stockman if he’s got a problem over here, he can come talk to me himself. Jack Avery has been all over this department and didn’t come up with a thing. I run a clean operation and I take care of my own.”
The traders actually applauded his speech.
—
THE STOCK TRADING FLOOR was just on the opposite side of the building, but judging by the change in atmosphere it could have been the other side of the planet. There was no screaming, no calling out of prices or orders, just the constant tap, tap, tap of computer keys. Row upon row of traders sat staring into monitors, shoulders hunched, necks thrust forward. Typing. The few murmurs of conversation were hushed and monosyllabic. It looked like some Victorian clerical nightmare—only with computers rather than quill pens and green ledger books.
“Lowell Barrington?” The trader I had approached waved me away without speaking.
“Next row.” A pretty assistant with a big Hello Kitty hairclip pointed the way. The traders on either side gave her brief scowls as though she had disturbed their monastic trance.
Barrington looked up as I approached. He made no pretense of disinterest. He knew who I was and what I wanted. He nodded, removed his headset, and stood up. He looked like three centuries of good breeding, wrapped in Brooks Brothers.
“Jason Stafford,” I announced. “Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”
I followed him to the water fountain at the end of the row. He took a long drink before turning to face me.
“Would it be all right with you if we put this off until Monday?” He spoke in a quiet, respectful voice, as though he’d just been brought up before the headmaster.
“What’s going to be different on Monday, Lowell?” I played his game. Quiet, restrained, but authoritative.
He transformed in a blink. His shoulders sagged, his face looked drawn and very tired. “There are things I want to tell you. Things I have been waiting to tell. But there will be repercussions. I need some time to prepare my family.”
I had no objection—in theory. In practice, however, I could feel his need to confess. “Look, we can get help. Whatever it takes. Legal or otherwise. The sooner you come clean, the faster we can start fixing things.”
He stood straighter and gave me an angry, almost insulted, look. “I don’t think you understand. I need to discuss this with my father before I speak to you. I tried to make that clear to Freddie last night.”
“Before or after you started ordering doubles? You’ve had plenty of time to talk it over with Dad. Now’s the time to fess up. Get it over with.”
“Brian was my friend. I want to get all this straightened out. I will help you. But not until after the weekend.”
He was adamant. But when he met my eyes, I saw a different story. They were the deeply sad eyes of a man confronting shame. I lost the willingness to push—he was already punishing himself, more than the world would ever do.
“Come find me Monday morning,” I said.
“Thank you.” The window behind his eyes had shut again.
“I’ll be in at eight. Don’t make me come find you, all right?”
His head jerked in what I took to be a nod of agreement.
I felt like a bully.
—
THE FRIDAY-AFTERNOON torpor had settled over the markets and the ranks began to thin. The commissioned salesmen were first to leave. The junior traders would be last. I went to check to see if Sudhir had returned.
“I’m looking for Sudhir,” I announced.
The head mortgage trader looked up from his monitor. He had a little, graying mustache that made him look a decade older than his forty-or-so years. Or maybe it had just been a tough week.
“You and me both,” he said.
“We were supposed to be meeting earlier today, but I saw him cutting out of the building around lunchtime.”
“That makes you the last person to see him, pal.”
> I seemed to be having some strange effects on junior traders that day.
“Check this out,” he said. “Hey, Carol. Where’s the fax from the Rabbit?”
The woman I had spoken with that morning handed me a single sheet of paper. I scanned it quickly. It was a letter of resignation. No explanation. Effective immediately.
“The guy went home, typed this up, and faxed it in. Weirdest fucking move anybody’s pulled on me. We’re sitting here sorting through his positions. Who the hell resigns by fax?”
“He never said a word?”
“Wait. It gets better. I had Carol call him at home. She gets his roommate just as the guy is headed out for the weekend. He’s pissed. The Rabbit packed a couple of suitcases and split. For the airport. He’s flying home. Probably already in the air, by now.”
“Home?” I was having a hard time keeping up.
“Yeah, home. As in India. North Dum Dum or whatever.”
“Kolkata,” Carol said.
“Same difference.”
“And nobody saw this coming?” I said.
“I should be grateful,” he said. “He did save me the trouble of firing his ass.”
“He wasn’t making it?”
He gestured for me to follow him. We walked only a few steps, then he turned and spoke quietly.
“Sudhir had a great first year. I thought he was going to be a star. Smart, cool, always focused. Then about a year ago, he started hanging out with that arrogant asshole Sanders. Excuse me speaking ill of the dead, but the guy was nasty. Sudhir turns into party guy and starts hitting the casinos every week. Then he starts getting slack. Next he’s making mistakes.”
“Trading mistakes.”
“Nothing serious. He misprices something by a quarter point or so. I ream him out. He says it’ll never happen again, and a week later it does.”
“What did you do?”
“Cut him slack at first—too much, I guess. Anyway, whatever mojo he ever had went away and never came back. He practically jumped every time somebody said his name. That’s when we started calling him the Rabbit. Finally, I reined in his risk limits and told him to cut back on his positions. He would have been gone by year-end.”
“Did you ever think he might have been up to anything?”
“Dirty?”
I nodded.
“I had compliance go over his trades,” he said. “Avery gave him a clean bill of health. It all came to nothing.”
“But you weren’t convinced.”
“Something smelled wrong, but I’ve got ten other things begging for my attention every minute of my day. I let it go.”
—
A FULL DAY of checking trade reports had done nothing to make Spud look any brighter or happier.
“You all right?”
“I’m never going to drink again.”
“And a good time was had by all,” I said. “Having any luck here?”
He shook his head.
“Nor me.” I filled him in quickly on the scene with Carmine, Lowell’s pleading for more time, and Sudhir’s self-banishment.
“No kidding?” He found the Sudhir story the funniest. “He’s a weird dude.”
“Really? I think your buddy Lowell may have him beat. He’s like a WASP zombie. Walking dead.”
“Did Jack Avery find you?”
“No. I didn’t know he was looking.”
“He stopped by. I told him you were interviewing Brian’s friends all afternoon.”
It had been a long week—I didn’t want another face-off with Jack Avery late on a Friday.
“I think it’s safe to say these guys were up to something—but who knows what? None of them are talking. The only thing to do is wait for Monday and see if Barrington opens up after he talks with his father. Unless you have any other ideas.”
“Just one.” He wrote a number on a slip of paper and pushed it across the table. “Call Brian’s roommate. He lives out in Brooklyn. Maybe he knows something.”
It sounded like a long shot, but I was down to long shots.
I WAITED UNTIL the Kid was down for the night before calling the roommate. Eight o’clock on a Friday night and it sounded like I had woken him up.
“Jason Stafford,” I repeated. “I’ve been hired by Weld. Brian’s old firm.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“So, I’d like to come over and chat about Brian for a bit.”
“Okay.” His voice was thin and detached and it hit me. He wasn’t sleepy, he was high. “Why?”
“Like I said. I’ve been hired by Weld to tie up some loose ends for them.”
He laughed. “That’s funny.”
I wondered what pharmaceutical cocktail he had ingested.
“How’s that?”
“’Cause that’s what the other guy said. Last week. Loose ends. That’s funny.”
The reason that I failed to see the humor had to be chemical in nature.
“Did this guy leave a name?”
“I don’t know.”
I thought about asking him to describe the man, but decided against it. For all I knew, the whole experience had been a hallucination.
“So when’s good for you?” My father had arranged to take the Kid all day Sunday. “Sunday? Noon all right?”
Noon was not all right. The roomie worked nights all weekend. Late afternoon would be okay. Late.
—
SUNDAY MORNING.
I made pancakes while the Kid read one of his car books. I knew he couldn’t read—though he could identify all his letters as long as they were in capitals—but his memory was so strong that he could look at a page that had once been read to him and repeat all the words verbatim. If he missed a word, he always missed that word—it was simply a white noise gap in his memory. And though the voice was definitely that of a five-year-old boy, the cadence and inflection were always those of whoever had first read the page to him. I could identify the ghosts of the living as the Kid turned the pages: Angie’s vocal sweeps and dips, and sometimes halting pronunciation as she sounded out longer words; my father’s dramatic pauses and emphasis, a skill I’d never known he possessed; Mamma’s syrupy sweetness, making dual carburetors and fuel injection systems sound like magnolia blossoms and maypop berries. And there was another voice, one that I did not at first recognize. A bit flat, but confident. Both strong and unassuming. It was a nice voice. I liked it.
“Time for breakfast, Kid.” Pancakes with corn syrup, a taste he had inherited from his mother, who claimed that “maple tastes weird.”
“Not hungry.” If I ever figured out whose voice he was imitating when he went into his “NO!” mode, I planned on waterboarding the son of a bitch.
“It doesn’t matter, little one. This is when we eat.”
“Not hungry.” He flipped a page and began to recite the brief history of the DeLorean. The book failed to mention the CEO’s arrest for trafficking in cocaine.
I let him finish. “Okay, Kid. Put it away and get up here.”
His body tensed and for a moment I was sure I was about to witness a major meltdown. Then, with a tuneless whistle, like a French teapot, he came to the table and began to eat. Another minor victory for both of us.
My father arrived minutes later and I fed him, too.
“What the . . . ? What is this?”
“Corn syrup,” I said.
“Tastes weird.”
He ate the pancakes anyway.
After a lengthy discussion of the proper placement and use of children’s car seats, and an even lengthier discussion of various possible routes, Pop bundled up the Kid and a half-dozen of his toy cars, and took him for a day trip out to a petting zoo in New Jersey.
I cleaned the apartment, shopped for e
ssentials, read another chapter of The Science and Fiction of Autism, belatedly arranged for a dozen roses to be sent to Wanda with a note that avoided use of the word “love,” yet did not actually preclude it, and mapped out my route to Brooklyn.
—
LATE THAT AFTERNOON, I rode the J train for the first time in my life—out past the projects, nearly to the border of East New York. Brian Sanders’ roommate lived in one of the dozen or so brownstone buildings on the block that was not yet undergoing renovation.
It was a testimony to the insanity of the New York real estate market that a young person making $150,000 a year or more could still be forced to share a third-floor walk-up around the corner from the Lucky Seven Bar and Grill, a steadfastly ungentrified watering hole, its single window painted black and the exterior walls tagged with the red three-jeweled crown of the local Bloods chapter.
The front windows of Sanders’ building were all covered in steel mesh. It would stop a brick, but not a bullet. That was probably a good sign in that neighborhood. The intercom must have worked, despite emitting a series of deafening and disheartening squawks—the door buzzed and gave way as I pushed through.
The door to the apartment was ajar, and I let myself in. The roommate was draped over a sagging armchair, which had been covered with an orange-and-blue silk batik. He was wrapped in an ankle-length Chinese silk robe with a migraine-inducing pattern in purple and silver stripes. Maybe he was color-blind.
“I’m Mitch,” he said. “What’s your name again?”
“Jason.”
Elaborate formalities out of the way, he went back to staring, dull-eyed, at a giant, wide-screen television where a bald man with a pussy patch beard was haranguing an attractive, but somewhat matronly blond woman at a Lucite lectern. The woman was squealing and clapping her hands with all the forced enthusiasm she could muster. I waited for a commercial before speaking again—I hated to interrupt.
“I’ve come to talk about Brian. Can you spare a few minutes?”
He picked up the remote and hit the mute button.
“Sorry to disturb your day off.” I tried to sound sincere.
“I work nights during the week. Friday and Saturday I get to play my music.”
Black Fridays Page 15
