Black Fridays Page 10

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  THERE WAS A VERY different buzz in the air out on the trading floor. Controlled panic had given way to near pandemonium.

  “Bid out!”

  “I hit you!”

  “No way! I told you my bids are out. Everything’s subject.”

  “Fuck that!”

  I kept to the edge of the trading floor, staying out of harm’s way. There was real fear and menace in the air. I stopped one of the salesmen I had interviewed that morning.

  “What’s up?”

  “Hey.” He looked up with a harried air. “It’s a shit show. There’s rumors of a bank going under—this week. And the way the mortgage traders are acting, it could be us.”

  “Have you seen Spud? The assistant who was working with me?”

  “Oh, yeah. The mortgage guys grabbed him—they need bodies.” He pointed across the floor and I saw Spud surrounded by a half-dozen other young assistants, all appearing to be buried under tickets and computer runs. I wasn’t going to get him back easily—or soon.

  I was at loose ends. Without Spud, the investigation was stuck in neutral. And I was interested to see if the rumors had any basis. I headed for Stockman’s office.

  Gwendolyn was away from her desk and the door to Stockman’s office was closed. There was an angry rumble beyond the door. I could hear Stockman talking—controlled, reasonable, and pissed—but not the words. A sound like rolling thunder answered him. Stockman said something that cut it off abruptly.

  The door flew open and a large, gray-suited man barged out, moving with the ponderous grace of a bulldozer. He saw me, his eyes went wide, and for a split second I felt an irrational fear of bodily harm.

  “You! You’re the guy.” He turned back to face Stockman as he came through the doorway. “I’m right. Aren’t I? This is him.”

  I was stuck between the couch and the coffee table, unable to retreat and any move forward would look like an advance.

  “Who am I supposed to be?”

  He aimed a thick index finger at the middle of my chest and made stabbing motions as he talked. “I know who you are. You’re Stafford. Well, I run compliance at this firm and you don’t want to get in my way. I will run right over you and not even feel the bump.”

  The finger felt dangerously close. Where I had been, if a man touches you, he owns you. Unless he’s a guard, in which case he already owns your ass. This guy smelled like a guard.

  I swatted the finger away. “Enough. Back off.”

  Unfortunately, I managed to swat his finger just at the moment of approach. His finger caught against the front of my shirt and a button flew through the air.

  I looked down. There was a minuscule tear around the buttonhole.

  “Jesus, Jack! Stop this playground posturing.” Stockman looked so put out, I thought he might stamp his foot.

  The big man glanced down at him, and for a moment he may have looked embarrassed. Then he glared back at me. “We’re not done,” he said, and left, almost colliding with Gwendolyn as she came in from the hall.

  I turned to Stockman, my anger and confusion not yet dissipating. “What in hell . . . ?”

  He held up one hand and spoke to Gwendolyn. “Hold my calls, would you? Mr. Stafford and I will be in conference. Not to be disturbed.” He took my arm and guided me into his inner sanctum. “Sit,” he said. “Take a minute.”

  My blood was still racing, but I took his advice. “Who the hell was that? Please tell me he’s worth at least ten mil, so when I sue his fat ass, it will be worth my while.”

  Stockman smiled politely. “Sorry. Nowhere near it. Jack Avery is our head of compliance.”

  “I gathered that.”

  “He is responsible for defending the firm and is party to all of the issues we are dealing with. I imagine the stress of recent events has affected his judgment. He will apologize.”

  I fingered the torn buttonhole. “He owes me a shirt.”

  Stockman gave a nod of benediction. I was behaving. “Thank you for your understanding. Give Gwendolyn your size and I’ll have a half-dozen delivered.”

  “What’s his problem with me?”

  “Jack was with NYPD for twenty years before finishing his law degree and joining the firm. He is very good at his job, but he does tend to see people in terms of ‘citizens and perps.’ He knows your history, and places you in the latter category, I’m afraid.”

  “Can you keep him away from me? I just want to do my job and go home and look after my son.”

  “I can do you one better. I’ll have a word with him. Give me a day or so. I can guarantee he will be more reasonable.”

  Reasonable sounded good. So did an aluminum baseball bat. I made a mental note to bring one to our next meeting.

  “How goes your little investigation? Anything for me?”

  I was reminded of what an annoying prick he was.

  “Nothing yet. But unless I get that assistant back, I’m not going to get much further. Mortgages stole him.”

  “Ah,” he sighed. “They are under the gun today. I will take care of it. What’s his name?”

  I blanked. I couldn’t say Spud, I would have sounded like an idiot.

  “Fred . . .”

  “Young Krebs? I know him. His father ran our high yield department for years. Let the dust settle and I will make sure you have him back first thing in the morning. Take the rest of the day—you won’t get much cooperation around here with all of these rumors flying.”

  I had no argument with that. I went home to my son.

  THE KID AND I were celebrating his second day at school. As he refused to drink milk or anything with either pulp or bubbles, the Kid had water. I had a beer.

  I set him up on a barstool facing the jukebox and gave him a handful of quarters. He always played the same song—C104, Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing”—incessantly. But no one complained, if they noticed. As long as the quarters held out, and the lights flashed in front of him, he was content.

  The Tuesday-afternoon crowd was just beginning to thin out. Vinny the Gambler was gone, but Ma and Pa were still holding up their end. They always stood, never sat. If they had enough of their respective gin and scotch that they were having trouble standing, they went home. It was their form of self-discipline.

  Tommy and Billy, the two Deadheads I had met my first night back in town, were seated at the fifty-yard line, continuing their never-ending debate: of the two hundred thirty-two times the Grateful Dead had performed “Dark Star” in concert, which was the most awesome? I had made the mistake of joining their conversation that night—before I knew better.

  The song ended and I checked on the Kid. He was slipping quarters into the slot with the intense focus of a neurosurgeon.

  The door opened and Roger came in with an athletic-looking woman. She was at least a full head taller than he—and thirty years younger. They made an odd couple. Roger’s eyes scanned the bar and his face jerked briefly into a semblance of a smile when he saw me. He pushed his way through, gesturing impatiently for the woman to follow.

  “So, right about now,” he said in place of hello, “you’re asking yourself, ‘What the fuck is this ugly old clown doing with a classy-looking lady young enough to be his daughter?’ Am I right or what?”

  The woman snorted. “Granddaughter!”

  She had to be only an inch or two shy of six feet, and all of it well put together. Her face was strong and sharp-featured. The kind of mouth that challenged for a kiss, rather than begged. As far as I could tell, she was wearing no makeup, or was very good at applying it. Dark brown, shoulder-length hair. Big green eyes that seemed to offer both a laugh and a challenge.

  “Nice to see you again, Roger,” I said.

  He turned to the woman. “See? I told you he was a nice man. Now, say he
llo to the nice man.”

  She looked me over and must have decided I wasn’t an ogre.

  “Hello, nice man.”

  She had a nice voice. Low, warm, and so accentless she must once have worked hard at it. “From Rollie’s description, I was expecting someone older and . . .”

  “. . . wiser?” I smiled.

  “No. Maybe a bit more ‘schlumpy.’ Not quite so . . .”

  “. . . virile,” I finished.

  “Serious,” she said, giving me a passable imitation of what I saw in the mirror each morning.

  I laughed. I knew what I looked like. “Takes long years of practice to maintain this.”

  “I bet you look just fine when you let yourself smile,” she said.

  Roger pulled himself up onto a barstool. “Rollie! A white wine for the little lady!” For some reason, he found this very funny. “And a gasoline. I am very low on fuel this evening.”

  “You must be Wanda the Wandaful?” I said.

  “Just Wanda.” She smiled. It was a great smile. My brain was wiped clean, my throat closed up, and my tongue tied itself into a knot. I wanted to invite her to fly with me to Fiji for a week, or at least come see the view of Broadway from my apartment for an hour, but I couldn’t speak. Then she looked away and the spell faded.

  “Health,” Roger said, raising his snifter. He slurped a third of his cognac like it was soda, then gave a shudder. “Oh, that’s much better.”

  He immediately looked better. His face was still sad, but there was a spot of color in his cheeks. He started flipping through an abandoned copy of the Post.

  The music started up again. “Sultans of Swing.” I was suddenly self-conscious—was the Kid bothering people? Was he bothering Wanda?

  “I hope you like Dire Straits,” I said to her.

  She took a sip of wine, tipped her head to one side, and made a sound somewhere between an assent and a grunt. “Hmmp.”

  “Hey, Jason! Jason!” Tommy was yelling to me from down the bar. “Tell Billy, will ya? The Live album version smokes, right?”

  “The Live album smokes,” I said, hoping that if I gave Tommy what he wanted he would leave me alone.

  “What I tell ya?” he yelled at Billy. “He knows. He knows!”

  “You’re a Deadhead?” Wanda said, giving me a look of reappraisal. “Somehow you don’t look old enough. Or young enough.”

  “I went to some shows a long time ago.” More than ever, I regretted introducing myself to Tommy.

  “How many?”

  “No idea.”

  “But more than a dozen, let’s say.”

  Twenty-six. I tried not to squirm. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You’re a Deadhead,” she laughed. It sounded like wind chimes.

  “Are you one?” I asked.

  Al Franken and Ann Coulter are both Deadheads. We are everywhere.

  “Me?” She laughed again. My toes curled. “The way I was brought up, there were only two kinds of music—country and western. I learned to love ’em both.”

  Country-western music. Could I ever learn to love a woman whose heartstrings were moved by a pedal steel guitar? But love wasn’t strictly necessary for what I had in mind.

  Roger gave up studying Page Six and swung around. “Excuse me. Coming through.” He hopped off the stool. “My prostate just told me it’s gonna let me pee. That’s like a big event in my life.”

  I stood back and let him pass. He walked with a bowlegged, rolling gait, leaning forward, as though his legs were perpetually trying to keep up with the rest of him.

  I slid in next to Wanda again. “So where’s home?” She didn’t sound at all country. Or western.

  “I’m an army brat. Athens, Georgia, to Athens, Greece.”

  I had not been this close to a woman in years, and had never been a brilliant conversationalist before then. I tried to think of something brilliant to say to keep her looking in my direction. I vowed not to ask what she did for a living. She looked away and sipped her wine. I wanted to inhale her.

  “So what do you do in the act? Roger claims it’s all his show.”

  She shook her hair down to cover one eye. “It’s a secret,” she teased.

  “You know about my secret life as a Deadhead.”

  “There must be no secrets between us.” She switched from Lauren Bacall to Marlene Dietrich and then back to her own voice. “I’m a student. I’m working on my doctorate.”

  “So you’re not a professional clown,” I said. The words poured out of their own accord. I would rather have strangled myself than listen.

  “It’s a job. I hand him the props and try and stay out of his way. Then I go home and work on my thesis.” She had stopped being playful—not quite cold, but definitely not as warm.

  She seemed a decade older than your average grad student, but I managed to keep that thought to myself. I took another swig of beer.

  When you’ve already dug a deep hole, you might as well jump in.

  “Listen, I’m sorry. Can we start over? I’d just like to have a conversation with a beautiful, intelligent woman. It’s been a while.” And that was as much information as I was ready to give up on that subject.

  She looked me over. “Look, I’m sure you are a nice guy. Roger says so and he hates everybody. But nice guys are married. Or gay. Which are you?”

  “Divorced.”

  She gave a resigned nod. “Nice guy with baggage.”

  “You’re divorced?” I asked.

  She cracked a smile. “How can you tell?”

  “Guy must have been a piece of work.”

  “Given the choice of sitting here and talking about (A) my ex, or (B) your ex, I choose (C). Whatever it is.”

  We sipped in silence. I wasn’t prepared to give up, but I needed a new tack.

  “I’m not very good at this, I know. Lack of practice. The last time I tried chatting up a girl in a bar, the only thing I could come up with was ‘What’s your major?’”

  She laughed. It wasn’t wind chimes this time, it was a big whooping guffaw. She looked me over again. She made a decision.

  “So go ahead and ask me,” she said.

  “Let me guess. Comparative lit. Early twentieth century. American.”

  She scrunched up her face and shook her head. “Way off. How about Physical Therapy? I’ll have my DPT next May.”

  I hadn’t known you could get a doctorate in physical therapy, but I managed to keep that to myself as well.

  Roger came rolling back and squeezed between us. “Jesus, you don’t know what it’s like. You’re a young guy. You’ll see. I walk around all day feeling like I’m about to let loose like a goddamn racehorse, and when I go, the best I can do is squeeze out a few drops. Take my advice, don’t get old.”

  “Your kidneys are getting too much of a workout,” Wanda said.

  Roger sighed. “My kidneys. We’re talking about my kidneys! Do I talk about your kidneys? Can’t I get any privacy?”

  “And you should drink more water,” she continued.

  “You know what W. C. Fields said about water.”

  She squeezed her face into a moue of distaste. “Something about what fish do there.”

  Roger shook his head. “‘You can’t trust water . . .’” he began.

  “‘. . . even a straight stick turns crooked in it,’” I finished. “One of my father’s favorite lines.”

  “I like your father,” Roger said. “And I look forward to meeting him someday.” He turned to Wanda and spoke in a stage whisper. “So, how are you two getting along? Has he offered to buy you a meal yet?”

  She stage-whispered back, “I think we were just getting there.”

  He turned to me. “I think I softened her up for ya, sport. Tim
e to make your move.”

  I cleared my throat and leaned across. “If I promise not to talk about our exes, can I buy you dinner sometime?”

  “I’m very busy,” she said.

  Roger rolled his eyes.

  “Even doctoral students eat,” I said.

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  There was a tug at my sleeve. The Kid. “Quarters,” he said.

  I hadn’t heard the music stop.

  “Just a sec, Kid.” I smiled at Wanda. For once, it didn’t feel like my cheeks were breaking.

  “This is my son, Jason. I call him Kid. Say hello to Roger and Wanda, Kid.”

  Roger grunted at him. The Kid grunted back.

  “Quarters.” He pulled harder on my sleeve.

  “My God, what a beautiful little boy,” Wanda said. “Hi there, Jason.” She put out her hand to shake.

  He didn’t bite it—a good sign.

  “Quarters.” It was an unpleasant rasp.

  Heather, his shadow and teacher, had instilled in me the idea that setting firm guidelines for the Kid’s behavior was of absolute importance. Please. Thank you. May I? These were all meaningless concepts to him. If he did not learn them soon, he would never.

  “I think you mean ‘Please, Jason, may I have another quarter?’ Don’t you?”

  The Kid was tired. He wasn’t having any of it. “Quarters!” He sounded more like a Marine drill sergeant than a five-year-old boy.

  I turned back to Wanda. “I’ve got to run. Please,” I said. “Dinner some night?” Heather stayed late on Thursdays. “Thursday would be great.”

  “Thursday, it is.” She gave me that smile again. “But I get to choose. Meet me here.”

  “Six-thirty?”

  She nodded.

  “QUARTERS!” It was really loud. Everyone at the bar reached for quarters.

  “Kid, we have worn out our welcome.” I gestured for everyone to keep their change. “We are out of here. Come on, I’m gonna get you a grilled cheese and some fries.”

  “Golden brown and extra-crispy,” he said, sounding exactly like the actor on the Ore-Ida commercial.