The Day Trader (29 page)

From my cubicle I gaze at the dark stain that’s fading quickly as the crew works. One minute Daniel thought he had solved all of his problems. He had reconnected with his father and he was headed back to Georgetown. He was happy and relieved. The next minute Slammer pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger. It was surreal watching Daniel tumble backward, grab his chest for a few horrible seconds, then go absolutely still.

That was the part I remember most clearly. His frantic death struggle suddenly stopped as his heart and his brain quit working and he just didn’t move anymore. A life can end so quickly.

One of the workers shoots me an odd look. Like I’m crazy or something. He probably can’t believe I’d want to be inside an office building on a beautiful summer Saturday afternoon. Especially an office where a hostage situation and a murder occurred little more than twenty-four hours ago. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I am crazy. But I needed closure. I needed to see all of this again right away.

And I have some serious work to do. Vincent’s friends are going to expect the same kind of results with the ten million dollars they’re about to hand me as they got with their test-case three hundred thousand. The pressure will be immense, and there’s no way I’ll be able to return thirty-three percent in a few days with the ten million the way I did with the three hundred grand. But I’m confident I can do well.

Some people might be satisfied with the money I’ve already made in the stock market and the proceeds from the insurance policy I’m still assuming I’ll ultimately collect. They wouldn’t want the stress of managing someone else’s money. They wouldn’t want the stress of those weeks or months when the portfolio doesn’t perform well—which there will inevitably be. But I’ve come to realize in the last few days that a million bucks isn’t exactly retire-to-Tahiti dough either.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s a sizeable amount. But I’ll still have to work for a living because if I put that million in the bank, it would earn me only about fifty thousand dollars of interest a year—about four grand a month. After taxes, four grand a month would just about cover the rent on a nice apartment and my new car payment, but there wouldn’t be much left over.

Besides, I’m not going to put that money in the bank. I’m going to day trade with it. I’m going to try to turn it into two million or three million, but you never know. The same thing that happened to Mary could happen to me, so I want to have other income.

I grab a pad of paper off my desk. I want to understand my financial situation in detail and figure out what kind of trouble I’ll be in if the insurance money doesn’t come through.

I made seventy-seven thousand dollars on my Unicom investment, thirty-five thousand on the Teletekk play, and I started with the ten grand my mother saved for me. That’s a hundred and twenty-two thousand dollars on the good side of the ledger, but I’ve had some major cash outflows as well. I gave Father Dale ten grand—not including the cash I found in Melanie’s dresser—put five thousand down as my deposit and first month’s rent at Bedford, repaid the five-thousand-dollar loan Vincent arranged for me, paid off the stack of bills on the kitchen table to the tune of another ten grand, and just stroked a twenty-thousand-dollar check to the BMW dealership—not to mention locking myself into a six-hundred-dollar payment for each of the next forty-eight months. So net-net I’m back down to seventy-seven thousand, which sounds okay, but I haven’t yet accounted for the fact that next April I’ll have to pay short-term capital gains taxes on the Unicom and Teletekk profits. That will put about another thirty-five thousand or so in the negative column, leaving me a real net of somewhere around forty thousand dollars.

And I almost forgot. I still owe the funeral home five thousand dollars for Melanie’s ceremony and cremation. Which really leaves me less than thirty grand. Jesus, a couple of bad days on the trading floor and I could be in trouble.

To make certain I’ve figured everything accurately I reach inside my top right-hand desk drawer for my calculator. As the drawer glides open, my hand snaps back as if I’ve touched red-hot coals. Someone’s rifled through my desk. I quickly check the other three drawers and they’re in the same wrecked condition.

I go back through each drawer, carefully taking inventory. The only thing missing seems to be the letter from Great Western Insurance Company confirming the amount of money they’ll pay me after finishing their investigation—the letter Anna delivered last Monday as I sat in the conference room. I had stashed it in my lower right-hand drawer along with some research material, where I thought it would be safe.

I stand up and move deliberately into Roger’s cubicle. The guy has asked me several times about that insurance policy I told him I got from my mother. At first I didn’t think much of it. I figured he was asking because he was taking a friendly interest in me, not because he might have some other agenda. The same friendly interest I thought he was taking that night I helped him with his computer. But now I’m not so sure. Now I’m wondering if all of his questions have something to do with the lies he’s told me about going to the University of Maryland and working at the Department of Energy.

I glance at the cleaning crew, worried that they might wonder why I’m going from cubicle to cubicle, but they aren’t interested in me at all. They just want to get finished and get out of here. I scan the trading floor, but other than the cleaners, I’m still the only one here.

My letter from the insurance company isn’t in Roger’s desk. The drawers are mostly empty except for pencils, pens, and pads of paper.

The cleaning crew finishes and begins wheeling the large machine down the aisle. When they’ve disappeared through the swinging doors, I glance into Mary’s cubicle. Mary asked me about the inheritance too. She tried to make light of it in the bar yesterday, but I could tell she was interested. So I walk into her cubicle and scan her desktop, rummaging through papers and files and notebooks, but nothing catches my eye. Then I reach for the top right-hand drawer and pull, but it’s locked tight. I sit down in her chair and lean back, contemplating the drawer for a moment. Then I reach for it again and give it a savage yank. There’s a loud snap and I’m in.

Stuffed inside the drawer is a pile of yellow tickets—Bedford buy and sell orders—and I grab a handful of them, place them on her desk, and begin to go through them. The third one is her Teletekk purchase, and as I glance at it, I’m puzzled. I scan it three times to make certain I’m reading the printed gibberish correctly, but I’ve read enough order tickets over the past two weeks to know how to decipher the code.

Mary told me she had purchased one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of Teletekk stock, but this ticket is for only
one
thousand. I pick up the next ticket and the next, thinking maybe she bought a number of small-order lots to disguise what she was doing. But they’re all for purchases or sales of other stocks—not Teletekk—and they’re all for small amounts, two to three hundred dollars each. Not the big-buck trades a woman who supposedly inherited two million dollars from a real estate mogul ought to be executing.

“What are you doing?”

I spin around and there she is, standing behind me, her face twisted by rage. “Mary, I—”

“What are you doing?” she demands again, louder this time.

“I was just, just . . .” My voice trails off.

“Tell me!”

“Why are you here on Saturday?” I ask lamely, unable to come up with a response. Usually I’m quick with a comeback in these situations, but not this time.

“You’re going through my desk!” she screams.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I say apologetically, rising up and taking a small step toward her, hoping she’ll move out of my way. But she doesn’t. “I’m sorry.”

“What is with you? What do you have against me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I thought we were getting along so well yesterday at the bar, then out of nowhere you blew me off. Now you break into my desk. I should tell Seaver what you’ve done and have you barred from this place Monday morning.”

“It’ll be your word against mine.”

“Why do you hate me?”

Mary and I kissed in her car yesterday afternoon until the rain let up. Then she drove me to where my car was parked, ready to follow me home. As I was about to get out, I turned back and told her I couldn’t go through with it. One moment I couldn’t wait to have her body wrapped around me, the next it was the last thing in the world I wanted.

“I don’t hate you,” I say gently. “Just the opposite. I like you very much.”

“Don’t give me that.” Her voice trembles as she turns her back on me. “Everything was fine one minute yesterday, then the next you told me you didn’t find me attractive. Now you’re breaking into my desk. What am I supposed to believe?”

“I never said I didn’t find you attractive.” I move to where she stands and try to caress her shoulders, but she steps away, her back still to me.

“You didn’t have to say it. It was obvious when you told me I couldn’t come home with you. That was terrible, Augustus.”

I take a deep breath. I don’t want her going to Seaver to tell him I’ve broken into her desk, but I want to understand why she lied to me about the size of her Teletekk purchase, learn the real reason she didn’t want to go to her house in McLean yesterday, and try to find out why she’s come onto me like a hurricane. “Mary, I thought you told me you had purchased a hundred thousand dollars of Teletekk.” I want to know why I haven’t seen that Jag of hers either.

She turns around slowly, an irritated expression on her face. “Excuse me?”

I hold up the Teletekk order I found in her desk. “This purchase order is for a thousand dollars, not a hundred thousand.”

“What’s your point?” she snaps.

“Is this all you bought? A thousand dollars’ worth?”

“Maybe.”

“Why did you tell me you bought a hundred grand?”

“None of your business.”

“Mary, how much did you lose when MicroPlan’s stock crashed this past spring?”

“None of your business,” she says again.

“How much did Jacob really leave you when he died?” I ask. Now I know how Reggie feels when he’s interrogating someone.

“I told you, two million dollars.”

“Why didn’t you want to go to your house in McLean yesterday after we left the bar?” I press.

“What?”

“You were willing to drive all the way to my place in Springfield. That would have taken us an hour in rush-hour traffic. But your house is five minutes away.”

“Why am I being made to feel like a criminal?”

“Answer me!”

“I told you,” she says, seething. “There were men at the house working on the living room.”

“You said it was the kitchen yesterday.” I pause. “And I have yet to see that Jaguar. What kind did you say it was?”

Her eyes turn to slits. “I didn’t.”

“Where did you tell me you were from?” I ask.

“I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did. It was Kentucky.”

“Is that why you don’t like me all of the sudden?” she asks angrily. “Because I opened up and told you that I’m nothing but trailer trash? Because you can’t be with a woman who grew up dressing in rags and eating leftover meatloaf for Christmas dinner? Is that what this is all about?”

“That’s ridiculous, Mary, and you know it. We haven’t been friends for that long, but by now you know I wouldn’t let—”

“Then why wouldn’t you let me come home with you yesterday?” she sobs, her eyes tearing up.

My gaze drops to the carpet. “I’m not over my wife yet. I didn’t feel right about it.”

“The man who kissed me yesterday wasn’t missing his wife.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Oh, I think I do,” she says, her voice chilling. “Slammer warned me about you right from the start. He told me he thought you had killed your wife, and that I needed to be careful. That we all needed to be careful. I guess he had you pegged.”

“That’s absurd.”

“He checked out the stories about your wife’s murder on the Internet, and he said he had you all figured out.”

“Slammer was a lunatic. Yesterday should have proved that to you. Besides, what could he possibly find out on the Internet? He was just jealous. He didn’t like how quickly we got close.”

“Which is exactly what I told him, but now I’m not so sure.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what you think it means.”

It’s my turn to stare her down. I can feel my anger building. Mary has no right to accuse me of these awful things. “If you’re so worried, why don’t you go ask your psychic about me?”

“Maybe I will.”

“Sure, Sasha will have
all
the answers. She did one helluva job warning you about yesterday. What a load of crap all that is. I don’t know how you can delude yourself that way.”

Mary swallows a sob. “I hate you.”

“Is there anything you want to tell me about that call you got while we were driving back to Bedford from seeing Sasha?” I ask.

“What are you talking about?”

“You told me it was an old friend from home. You sure you want to stick to that story?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Why did you go through
my
desk?” I ask.

“What!
You
were the one going through
mine
.”

“What were you looking for?” I push. She’s not answering anything, but if I press, maybe I’ll break through. “Was it just the letter from the insurance company, or was there something else you were hoping to find?”

“You’re crazy!” she shouts at the top of her lungs.

The sound of the circular saw in the conference room fades, like it’s been turned off and the blade is slowing down. “You’ve been lying to me all along, haven’t you? There was no two-million-dollar inheritance, no house, and no Jag. Probably no marriage either. Were you his mistress? Was that the real deal? Did the guy’s wife find out about you and threaten him with divorce if he didn’t stop seeing you?”

“You bastard! You goddamn bastard!”

Two guys with tool belts hanging low around their waists appear at the conference room doorway. “You all right, miss?” one of them calls.