Black Fridays

by Michael Sears

  Something like a bag full of casino chips.

  “I’m not your go-to guy, here. I’ve told you what I know. Now I’m done. Out of it. I want to take care of my son and look around for my next paycheck.”

  “You need to cooperate with me.”

  His insistence was beginning to annoy me. “What aren’t you getting? I have cooperated! Now I’m done. If I trip over something else I think you can use, I’ll pass it along.”

  “You’re on parole, Stafford. Don’t cross me or you’ll find yourself on the way back upstate.”

  They could not know about the chips, or they would already have said something. I had nothing else to offer. Maloney knew that. The only thing that made any sense to me was that he wanted something else. Something entirely different. That shifted the game to my side of the table. I could afford to bluff.

  “We’re done here. Take me in. Let me make my call. I don’t know what you guys think you’re doing, but I’m not having any of it.”

  Maloney slammed his hand down on the table. It was a cheap trick, but it worked. I shut up.

  “Hear me out. I’ve got a dead witness to what I think may be a major criminal conspiracy. Do you think I’m going to let a pissant ex-con and his gentle feelings stand in my way? From here on, you are working for me—on my terms—or you are on your way back.”

  A parole officer has powers once reserved for minor Greek gods. A word in his ear from the FBI, and I could be back in the system—without appeal. My next parole hearing would be in eighteen months. The Kid would go back to being locked up in Mamma’s spare bedroom.

  “All right. I’m listening.”

  Brady was watching his boss carefully, which made me think we were well off script. Maloney was fishing. He had the power to destroy my life, but only I could give him the excuse.

  “First, I want you to get us that laptop. Then you meet with our techs—walk them through. I would bet there’s plenty more in those files that you missed.”

  I wouldn’t have made any such bet, but providing him the laptop would cost me nothing.

  “What else?”

  “Two. I’m going to get that warrant. Somehow. When I do, you come along. You show our accounting people what to look for—specific trades, dates, counterparties.”

  This was annoying, but nothing more. “I get paid for doing that.”

  “Think of it as giving something back to the community.”

  Again, it would cost me nothing but an hour or so of my time.

  “Next?”

  “You go back to Weld. But this time you wear a wire. I want all those millionaires on tape.”

  “Not a chance.” Some of those people may have been jerks or, worse, crooks, but some were friends—or had been. They didn’t deserve that kind of duplicity from me. “Sorry, but I’m just not that kind of guy. Besides, didn’t your last rat get himself killed?”

  “Four.” Relentless. “You meet with Hochstadt. Provoke him. Threaten to blackmail him. We’ll script it all out for you. Just get him on tape saying something incriminating.”

  It was my turn to slam a hand on the table.

  “Don’t you fucking get it? I’m not doing this. Call my parole officer. I can still afford a lawyer and I want to hear what a judge will have to say about you setting me up to entrap a suspected murderer. I’m a Wall Street trader, not goddamn James Bond! Out! We are done!”

  Brady gave me the hard stare again. “We can run a file on you—say anything we want. How’d you like to be a registered sex offender? We can make that happen. One call to Family Services and your son is in foster care. I can have your bank account frozen. Today. By the time we’re done, your own father won’t want to know you.”

  I believed they could do it. But I did not believe they would do it. I fired back.

  “You know what, Brady? You should stick with driving the car and the heavy lifting. Leave the brain work to your boss. The bluff only works if I fold. I want no part of your little improv group.” I stood up and swung open the front door.

  Maloney took his time standing up and walking over. He still looked like he held a solid two pair and wasn’t too happy about leaving. But his partner had overplayed the hand and blown the dodge.

  “We’re not done, Mr. Stafford. You can help us. And when you get your head turned around, you’ll see. It’s the right thing to do.”

  “Right, Sarge,” I shot back. “I’ll be in touch. As soon as the devil starts wearing a down coat and mittens.”

  I closed the door firmly behind him.

  STOCKMAN DID NOT call until the next afternoon. I had my nose buried in a book on nutrition for autistic children, and was wondering what a gluten was, and if it was possible to make a grilled cheese sandwich without one.

  “Jay!” Stockman boomed in my ear. “Sorry, I’m just getting back to you. As you can imagine, I’ve been in one meeting after another for the past thirty-six hours.”

  And loving it, I thought. Stockman was the kind of guy who lived for meetings.

  “Yes, yes,” he continued after a pause. I realized I must have missed a cue—he had been waiting for me to offer congratulations. “Big happenings!” He went on to tell me how well he had handled the teleconference with the Secretary of the Treasury; what an extraordinary price he had negotiated for the stockholders; and, oozing modesty, casually mentioned the mid-eight-figure deal he had worked out for himself.

  Only 23 percent of the firm’s employees would become redundant. I thought it was a staggering figure, but he was quite proud of it. Most of them, of course, would be in “non-producing areas.” In other words, clerical, oversight, and operations. The lowest-paid would take the hit.

  I was sure that Stockman would not personally deliver the bad news to any employee—he would delegate.

  “So, please, no bad news today. I have worked my whole life for this moment, and want to savor it as long as I can.” He laughed heartily as though he had made a great joke.

  I wondered how loudly he would have squealed if I told him the FBI had been asking me questions.

  “There are developments.”

  “Good! Good!” he boomed again, shutting me up. He really didn’t want to hear it. “Bring me your report. Write it up, will you? I’ll have Gwendolyn put you on the calendar for tomorrow—late morning.”

  “I don’t want you blindsided by this.” I tried one last time. “Let me give you the highlights.”

  “Yes. Tomorrow. I’ll get Jack Avery and Eugene Barilla here as well.”

  “Can we make it just the two of us? Some of this is for your ears only.” Barilla was high on my list of co-conspirators and I didn’t trust Avery, either.

  “Hmm. Intriguing.” A tinge of anxiety came into his voice. “All right, we’ll do it your way.” He sounded, suddenly, very tired. “See you tomorrow.”

  I put away my autism books and prepared to write my report. Somehow, I had to find a way to reveal as much of the FBI’s suppositions, without acknowledging their interest, or the fact that Sanders had been working with them. I had to alert Stockman to the possibility of a murder investigation impinging on the trading scandal and do it without sounding like a nutcase conspiracy theorist. And maybe Stockman was the ringleader and none of it made any difference anyway.

  Three hours of staring at my laptop produced a half-page of ill-formed sentences and a headache.

  Specific trade examples would be more effective than words as a demonstration of the way the scam had been played. For that I needed Spud. I called the prop trading desk. Neil Wilkinson answered the phone.

  “I’m sorry, Jason. It appears you have missed him.” The layoffs had begun, he explained, and, at Barilla’s insistence, Spud had been one of the first to go. “They seem to be cutting a very wide swath this time. It is so unpleasant when we are forced to g
o through these periodic cleansings—especially when so much potential talent is just tossed out. I am reminded of female polar bears who eat their young when food resources become scarce.”

  “Is there any way, Neil, of getting a message to him? Can I give him a call?” I could patch together something for the report without Spud’s help, but I was concerned for the young man as well.

  “H.R. wouldn’t want us to give out personal information, but you might speak with Gwendolyn in Bill Stockman’s office. She could get him a message to call you.”

  FALL ARRIVED that evening, with a bitter wind and a light fog, making me wish for that near-impossible New York City luxury—a working fireplace.

  The cold mist didn’t seem to affect the Kid at all. He was busy skipping, a previously impossible feat of coordination, which he had just mastered in school that day. I had called Skeli to brag and make sure we were still speaking after the debacle of our dinner on Monday. She was too busy with school to join us, but we talked for a few minutes. Somehow she understood the monumental importance I placed on the Kid’s being able to skip. Every tiny milestone of development for any other child was for him a hurdle on an infinite obstacle course. We agreed to meet for dinner—and possibly more—the next night.

  So the Kid and I celebrated alone together, with a trip to Barnes & Noble. It was late; we had taken an hour to choose our purchases—Detroit’s 50 Biggest Losers for the Kid; There’s a Boy in Here, another of Heather’s recommendations; and something called The Stinky Cheese Man, which Skeli had insisted the Kid and I would both like.

  Broadway was nearly empty, the early-evening crowds having dissipated with the sudden turn in the weather. Gusts of wind, funneled up the concrete canyons, had stripped the first brown leaves from the trees, and the sidewalk was a slick minefield of them. I wanted to tell the Kid to be careful, but I knew he had no concept of what the words meant.

  I turned up my collar and pulled my jacket tight around my throat, like a character in a Humphrey Bogart movie, and wished I had a hat. A fedora? I didn’t think I knew what a fedora was, but I was sure it would keep the rain off my face.

  The Kid was a half-block ahead—his limit—but the next cross street was only a skip or two in front of him. I refrained from calling him back, and congratulated myself on acting like an indulgent, confident dad.

  He reached the curb, stopped, and turned to face me. Almost immediately, he began to moan and flap his arms. His mouth formed a big O and he closed his eyes. I had no idea what was setting him off, but he was already oblivious to the traffic behind him. I cursed myself for letting him get so far ahead and ran.

  But I had only traveled two steps, when a large something—someone—slammed into me from behind. My feet scurried for purchase on the bed of slick leaves and I almost recovered my balance. I turned my head to see my attacker. A mistake. I had offered him a better target. In the instant before his fist connected with my left eye, I had a quick, blurred view of a tall man with a long reach.

  The back of my head bounced off the concrete wall of the Duane Reade drugstore and I slid to the sidewalk. I was still conscious when I felt the first kick to my stomach. The Kid was screaming, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

  —

  SOMEONE KEPT YELLING my name. I wished they would shut up. It didn’t hurt where I was, and if they insisted on my going where they were, I knew it was going to hurt. A lot.

  “Jason Stafford!” Time twisted back on itself. First, my eyes flew open. Then I heard my name. Then I smelled the amyl nitrate. My heart raced and for a split second I had the strength of ten. Then my head started to hurt and the world started spinning again.

  “Stay with me, Jason!” the annoying man yelled. He pulled at my eyelid and a blinding white light stabbed my pupil. There was a kaleidoscopic explosion of whirling pinwheels and multicolored sparks.

  “Definitely concussed.” The man was speaking to someone else. He probably thought he was helping, but I wished he would just fuck off.

  “Can he tawk?” A second voice. Another stranger. Older.

  I told him that I was quite capable of speech, but the only sound that came out was a throaty growl.

  “Wha’d he say?”

  The pain in my head was different from the pain in my side. Pain was no longer a universal constant—it had flavors and textures, time and place. I was returning to my own dimension. I remembered everything.

  “Where’s my son?” My voice sounded like a wooden spoon stuck down the garbage disposal.

  “He’s trying to talk.” The guy with the light.

  Why the hell wouldn’t they just answer me?

  “Is the Kid all right? Where is he? Kid! Kid! Are you there?” Only it didn’t sound like that. I had to find him.

  “Hold him down! Christ!”

  Pain took charge. It crescendoed in a magnificent, soaring coda. Pain could bend steel, lance through cement-block walls, and grind bones to dust. I loved my pain. As long as I had it, I was alive. As long as it was there, I had no responsibilities, no duties. Then the pain started to go away. I tried to follow. I went somewhere else instead.

  —

  AN ANGRY WOMAN stood over me, wearing a white coat over a gray Yale sweatshirt. She had large, strong features, bushy eyebrows, and a big, square jaw.

  “How many fingers am I holding up?” She sounded like she was already fed up with my malingering and wanted me out of her ER. STAT.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Are you in pain?” She was speaking very loudly as though I were deaf or foreign.

  I did an inventory. The back of my head throbbed. My ribs ached—they were going to hurt a lot more as soon as I moved. I tried squinting my eye. It hurt.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “That’s to be expected,” she yelled.

  “Where’s my son?” I yelled back.

  “You’ve had a concussion. You were in a fight.”

  “It wasn’t a fight,” I said. I was attacked. Mugged. Assaulted. I was not in a fight!

  She gave a brief skeptical smile.

  “Where’s my son?!?” I sat up. The merry-go-round started up, complete with the shower-ball lights and wailing calliope. “Aw, shit.” I fell back.

  —

  AT MY NEXT awakening, a Mayan-featured woman in a green uniform was taking my blood pressure. She smiled when she saw that I was awake.

  “Chubedda?” she asked.

  “Yes, thanks. Much better.” I was. The line dividing pain and discomfort was much easier to identify. I had a lot of discomfort.

  I was still in the ER, but no longer on the stretcher. They had moved me to a full gurney and I was surrounded by beeping monitors.

  “What’s the verdict?” I nodded toward the blood pressure machine.

  She stripped off the armband. “One-twenty over eighty. You’ll live.”

  “I think that doctor wants me out of here. You must be short on beds.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Dr. Glen should’ve been a vet.” She pushed aside the curtain to leave.

  “Just a sec. Is there someone I can talk to? I think my son is missing. I need to know what’s going on.”

  “The police. They still here, waiting to talk wichu. I send them in.”

  I was still wearing my watch. It was just after midnight. Almost four hours. I tried to convince myself that the Kid was fine. The police had him. He was in the waiting room, reading his new car book or fast asleep. Or they’d already taken him home. Because if they hadn’t, then where the hell was he?!

  A heavyset nurse came around the curtain and opened a cabinet across the room.

  “Nurse? Excuse me. Nurse?”

  She ripped apart a sealed plastic bag of sterilized towels and removed one. Two more fell out of the
bag and landed on the floor.

  “Nurse? Can you help me? I need to find out about my son.”

  She picked up the two towels, stuffed them back in the bag, and jammed the whole thing back in the cabinet.

  “Nurse? Helloooo!”

  She left with her clean towel.

  “Mr. Staffud?” A tired-looking policeman appeared from around the curtain. “This a good time to tawk?” The older voice from earlier.

  “Do you know where my son is?” I tried to make myself sound under control. My blood pressure was probably already up to two hundred over, and the little blinking light on the monitor for my pulse was flashing like a strobe.

  “The boy is fine,” he said. “He was a little scared and he ran.” The cop laughed. “But, boy, you got him trained good. He wouldn’t cross the street by himself, so he just kept running around the block until we got there.”

  I swallowed a few times, while I found my voice again. “Thank you. When can I see him?”

  The cop shrugged. “Let me do my thing, awright? Then we’ll see if they’re gonna let you go home.”

  He was good, he asked all the right questions three times over. But there wasn’t much I could tell him. It made no sense. I had my watch and wallet, so it wasn’t a mugging. There were plenty of people who didn’t like me, but precious few who would attack me on the street four blocks from Lincoln Center.

  “Anything about the way he carried himself, the way he moved, maybe?”

  “I barely saw him.” Then I did think of something. “I don’t know, maybe I imagined it, but, when he was kicking me . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “It was strange. I was curled in a ball and not looking, but I think he was favoring one leg. As though he had a limp, maybe.”

  “Hmm.” He looked unconvinced, but he made a note. “That’s it?”

  “Afraid so.”

  He put his notebook away. “You’re gonna hear from the detectives at some point. Somebody’ll get assigned and they’ll have to ask the same questions and make a report. Sorry. That’s the way we do it.”