Wall Street Noir Read online

  “A hundred Deece at twelve!” shouted the trader in front of him.

  David bent down and spoke into the man’s ear. “Buy ’em.”

  The trader frowned at him. “A hundred at twelve? You’re sure?” His tone made clear he knew David was a one-lotter.

  Hearing the other man’s doubt, David felt something rise up inside him. He jerked his head in a nod. “Write it up.”

  As the trader scribbled the details of the trade on a pit card, someone called, “Dash!”

  David glanced around the ring and spotted Vigneri’s bulky frame on the other side. His friend cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, but David couldn’t hear him over the hubbub. Vigneri made a slashing motion across his throat, then gestured at the quote board.

  David looked up. December gas had dropped a nickel. As he kept watching, the number changed again. Ten cents down. His stomach churned. The market was turning against him.

  He calculated his loss—two hundred thousand. A temporary slide, he told himself, like a car skidding across an ice patch, then regaining traction before it hit anything. Small when compared to two million. But as he watched, the numbers dipped again, and the two hundred became two hundred and fifty.

  David felt as if he were in a pool of rising water. He craned his neck to see the television. Breaking News read the crawl at the bottom of the screen. The red swirl was still there, but the dotted line showing its projected trajectory had shifted. According to the graphic, the storm would bypass Louisiana altogether. The hurricane is going to miss the Hub David’s heart banged against his ribs. He flicked his eyes back to the quote board just as the gas number began to nosedive in earnest.

  Around him, shouts became bellows as the market fell. A few feet away a trader held his head in his hands and moaned, while another threw up. Transfixed, David watched the price grind down, taking his dreams with it.

  The house was the first to go. “Eleven seventy-five.” Kiss the place in Connecticut goodbye. “Eleven forty.” There goes the red Porsche “Eleven twenty.” Au revoir, trip to Paris. “Eleven ten.” No more Cartier watch David winced at every down-ward tick, the plummeting number like a finger poking him in the chest.

  “Eleven dollars!” yelled the trader beside him. All of David’s profit was gone. The realization jolted him from his stupor, and he raised his hands to join the cacophony.

  “TWO HUNDRED AT TEN EIGHTY! TWO HUNDRED AT TEN EIGHTY!” he shouted.

  There were no takers. Abandoning the hand signals, David screamed ever-decreasing offers. “Ten sixty! … Ten forty! …” It was like trying to find someone to catch a falling knife. No one answered.

  By now the spread between buyers and sellers was so huge, it was practically unbridgeable. One by one, would-be sellers stopped shouting. Instead they stared wordlessly, watching the price of gas plunge too quickly for the quote board to keep up. The ground was littered with discarded pit cards. In the middle of the ring the clocker gaped at the traders, eyes large behind his goggles, bewildered at having nothing to do.

  At last the number slowed, finally stabilizing at its pre-hurricane level of ten dollars per contract. David stared at the quote board, the neon colors blurring. Two million dollars gone, like water through his fingers. All that was left was—

  Realization burned through him. It wasn’t only a watch or a car that was gone. He owed the clearing firm two million dollars for the two hundred contracts. I lost Malia’s seat. As if reading his thoughts, Earl Kinder materialized on the other side of the pit and headed toward him.

  David tasted bile in his mouth. He whirled and began shoving his way out of the ring to the exit. He couldn’t face the clearing house rep. Not until he figured out how to save the seat.

  He burst through the Exchange’s revolving doors and into the cold air. Reporters from the financial press hovered near the entrance, looking for first-person accounts of the carnage. They surged forward at the sight of David’s trading jacket. Dodging the photographers’ zoom lenses, he sprinted down the walkway that led to the ferry. Once he was north of the pier and onto the rocks, the journalists abandoned their pursuit.

  Reaching the river’s edge, David propped his hands on his knees and took several deep breaths, waiting for his heart to slow. A pair of pelicans trundled along the shoreline, like two old men on their way to the corner bar. There was no one else around.

  David sank to the ground, heedless of the damp rocks. Raindrops stung his skin and the air was sour with exhaust and brine. He could hear the hum of traffic behind him on the West Side Highway.

  Tomorrow he would talk to Kinder, work something out. Even as he formed the idea, he knew it was ridiculous. The Floor was like Vegas—you had to pay to play.

  Two million dollars He’d had his Big Day, and already he couldn’t really remember what it had felt like. One thing was certain: Getting what you wanted and losing it was worse than never having had it at all.

  “Dash.” The soft voice startled him out of his reverie. A hand dropped onto his shoulder. “I’m sorry, but it’s over.”

  Kinder Wiping the sweat and tears from his eyes, David pushed himself to his feet, a litany of if onlys running through his brain.

  If only I hadn’t borrowed the money against the seat … If only I had sold out instead of buying more … If only I hadn’t believed red cars and trips to Paris would make things right between Malia and me again …

  “Did you cover before you left?” Kinder asked.

  David shook his head, then shivered as the wind knifed through his thin trader’s coat. The sky was low and opaque. “After I sell out your position, we’ll go upstairs to turn in your ID.” Kinder nodded at the square of plastic on David’s lapel. “I need you to give me that.”

  “Mr. Kinder, please …” David covered the badge with his hand. “Spot me fifty,” he begged, his voice cracking. “I’ll pay you back.”

  “You know I can’t do that. Give me the badge, Dash. The sooner you do, the sooner this will be behind you.”

  David tightened his grip on the plastic pin. Kinder reached out as if to pry his hand loose. David twisted away, stepping into the water and shoving the rep with his shoulder. Kinder gasped as he lost his footing on the slick stones. He started to topple forward.

  In that split second, David knew he could reach out and catch the falling man. But he didn’t move. Instead, he watched Kinder strike his head on a sharp rock and land face-down in the river.

  The clearing house rep lay still, save for one hand undulating in the current as though it were waving. Blood leaked from his wound, clouding the water before it was swept downstream.

  Ankle-deep in the icy water, David stared at the scene in disbelief. Then panic overtook him, propelling him out of the river and back onto the walkway, where he tried to collect himself.

  He was alone. No gunboat, no security patrol, no pedestrians or loitering homeless. Even the pelicans were gone. Unable to think of what else to do, David began walking toward the Exchange. As the building loomed in front of him, he slowed his pace and looked toward the Hudson.

  Maybe I should … He had a decent term life insurance policy, enough so that Malia could start over. David veered off the walkway toward the water, his shoes squishing on the gravel.

  “Hey, Dash!”

  David turned to see Vigneri lumbering toward him, a cigarette dangling from his fingers. Almost unconsciously, David reached into his pocket for an antacid tablet.

  “Christ, I hate these stupid smoking laws.” Vigneri exhaled a stream of smoke through his nose and eyed the roll of antacids in David’s hand, though he didn’t seem to notice his wet feet. “The Exchange should have bowls of those on the Floor for days like today.” He barked out a laugh. David flinched at the sound.

  “Jesus, you’re twitchy. That’s what holding size will do to you.” Vigneri dragged on his cigarette. “So, did you catch my signal and get out in time? That reporter I used to date told me about the ’cane missing the Hub right before
it went out over the air. I got short, made a little money.”

  David’s mouth was so dry he could barely speak. “Not exactly.”

  Vigneri grimaced. “Ah shit, Dash.” He dropped his cigarette onto the gravel and ground it out with his shoe, then glanced at his watch. “Close is in thirty minutes.”

  For a moment, David watched the river slide past. He thought he could see tendrils of red in the water. “Let’s go.”

  They walked back to the Exchange, David’s wet pant cuffs flapping against his ankles. David dully watched his ID pass through the card reader at Security, then followed Vigneri to the elevator.

  The natural-gas pit was in full cry, as frenetic as it had been that morning. Out of habit, David glanced at the quote board, then looked again. Gas was trading at thirteen, up three dollars from the opening.

  His eyes flicked to the television monitor. The red swirl had been replaced by a blaze of flames leaping into the sky. David stared at the image, struggling to make sense of it, as a roar went up from the pit—the signal that the price had hit another new high.

  Vigneri broke off talking with another trader. “Can you fucking believe it? When they evacuated the Hub, someone left a valve open at the gas processing plant. The whole damn place blew up! Gas is going through the roof!” Vigneri punched David on the arm. “You’re making a killing, you lucky bastard.”

  David was stunned. Because Kinder hadn’t sold the two hundred contracts, his account was up four million dollars. And Malia’s seat was safe.

  His heart beat faster as he mentally replayed the scene at the waterfront. He and Kinder had been alone. Vigneri had chalked up his nervousness to holding a big position. Hope spread through David’s chest. My Big Day.

  Against Floor rules, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. Punching in Malia’s number, David checked the quote board again. As soon as he told her the good news, he’d sell. No way was he making the same mistake twice.

  Underneath the electronic display, a security camera slowly panned the area. Just like the ones posted along the riverbank.

  A TERRORIZING DEMONSTRATION

  BY JIM FUSILLI

  23 Wall Street

  An aptitude with higher mathematics earned him an enviable position at the nation’s most powerful bank, but he soon lost it to petulance. “No good will ever come of you,” said the paymaster as he tallied his severance, wagging an ancient finger. “Not by half are you as clever as you believe.”

  With a smirk on his lips, the young man departed the bank’s gray, bunker-like offices. By the time he stepped into the bustle of Broad Street, he decided the events that had led to his dismissal required redress.

  He told himself neither the prissy clerk who declared his work ill conceived nor the secretary who deemed his advances untoward was worthy of his consideration. The creaking paymaster was a cross-eyed dolt.

  Soon he realized not even the attenuation of J.P. Morgan himself would compensate for the unwarranted assault on his character.

  By the time he reached Cortlandt Street, he knew that only the institution itself would merit the full force of his intellect in the service of his sense of Justice. Taking the Sixth Avenue El uptown, he began his withdrawal into what would be a lengthy period of unwavering purpose.

  When he returned to the corner of Wall and Broad streets twenty-one months later, on the third Thursday of September 1920, it was to execute a plan that, in his mind, was perfect.

  Mauro sat on the brownstone steps, elbows on scuffed knees, and gazed doe-eyed into the summer evening, his ten-year-old mind all but unoccupied by thought.

  The slight, round-headed boy was unaware he had been judged insufficient by the nuns, who recommended to his mother that she return with him to Terracina. Paterson teemed with Italian immigrants, they explained carefully, and only the brightest among them would find purchase in America.

  Stunned, Mauro’s mother took her son by the hand to the public school. The sympathetic vice principal, a Mr. Piatti, un Milanese, was made to understand that the boy was the family’s future, the reason they had come to northern New Jersey from southern Italy. Mauro was placed in the third grade class for slow learners. When September arrived, he would be the oldest among his new classmates.

  Widowed by a trolley accident, Mauro’s mother took in laundry and repaired garments for her Essex Street neighbors, many of whom considered use of her services an act of charity. Among her customers was the man who moved in three floors above her basement apartment, the rare American in the Italian quarter. She saw him as quiet and respectful with a dash of charm, despite his angular face that dry skin had reddened at the nose and pale eyes of a peculiar aspect she could not identify.

  Each Tuesday, he left a plump pillowcase outside her door, a crisp dollar bill atop his soiled clothes.

  One afternoon, she found in his shirt breast pocket a crinkled deposit slip from the Morgan Bank of 23 Wall Street. Eager to return it to him, she instructed her son to sit outside and summon her when the man approached.

  Mauro wiped his nose with a slender arm as he watched an orderly row of black ants enter a narrow breech in the steps where, earlier, he had inserted a pignoli nut.

  Mama,” he shouted, “sta venendo!”

  Removing her apron, Mauro’s mother scurried to the wrought-iron fence and held out the slip, her hand trembling with nerves.

  In greeting her, the man removed his boater, revealing hair lighter than the color of straw.

  Mauro watched incuriously.

  The man thanked her and buried the paper in a side pocket. Returning his hat to his head, he said, “Perhaps the boy would profit from a visit. Wall Street, the financial capital of our country, and the New York Stock Exchange, of course.”

  She smiled in agreement.

  He tussled the boy’s hair as he climbed the steps, soles scraping brownstone.

  He rented the apartment in Paterson after learning the city was the anarchists’ capital of the United States, home to La Questione Sociale, a weekly newspaper whose circulation at one time exceeded fifteen thousand, roughly the equivalent of the daily distribution of The Wall Street Journal. Its publisher was Errico Malatesta, a proponent of violence as a means to social change.

  Another Paterson resident, Gaetano Bresci, returned to Italy in 1900 and killed its king, Umberto I.

  And a third Italian anarchist, Luigi Galleani, also lived in Paterson for a while, until he was deported. His admirers, known as Galleanists and largely comprised of laborers of Italian descent, absorbed his philosophies. A few had bombed police stations, creating the infernal weapons by following Galleani’s instruction manual that bore the title “La Salute è in Voi,” a crude translation of which is “To Your Health.”

  “The irony of it!” said the man who had dyed his hair the dark color of a Mediterranean native. His tittering laughter drew the ire of the people at an adjoining table in the library’s reading room. He quickly gathered his notebooks and blue prints, leaving the Galleani manual in plain sight.

  In fact, he had no real need for the Italian’s instructions. In the Yorkville section of Manhattan, there were Germans, some of whom had served the Fatherland in the Great War, who knew how to build bombs far more sophisticated, and devastating, than those the Galleanists deployed.

  Using the name Errico Bresci, the man purchased a wagon built in 1893. At a stable on Paterson’s Mill Street, he bought a ten-year-old harness for the dark bay he kept under the Brooklyn Bridge.

  T.J. O’Neal Jr., a resident of Nutley, New Jersey, transported himself to lower Manhattan via the Tubes from Newark. He did so daily, endeavoring to complete the crossword puzzle of the Newark Star before arriving at the Hudson Terminal.

  The twenty-minute ride was inevitably uneventful, for Mr. O’Neal traveled after the morning rush had ended. From his window, he saw the great concrete and sandstone towers of Wall Street, one rising higher than the next, as if climbing each other in competition for a gold ring hidden among the clouds.
Though he had been a waiter at Ye Olde Chop House on Cedar Street for more than a decade, he still felt a jolt of amazement at the sheer audacity of the district, the intensity of its activity and its presumption of

  Today, a man carrying a tennis racket assumed the seat next to Mr. O’Neal, arriving at the moment the train slid to the underground.

  “Hello,” said the black-haired man, who introduced himself as Fischer.

  Mr. O’Neal nodded politely, but in such a way as to discourage further conversation. The puzzle beckoned.

  “I’ve seen you,” said Fischer, adjusting his tennis racket. “You are amiable.”

  Mr. O’Neal gripped his pencil and edged against the train’s sidewall.

  “September,” the man said, “in this, the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and twenty, on the day you read in your newspaper that many police of the Old Slip Station have been reassigned …”

  The waiter frowned, but did not turn away. He had heard rumor of a pending action by the New York Police Department against Communist agitators marching at Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company headquarters and its assorted car barns.

  “On that day, you are best served to remain at home.” The man nodded knowingly. “A dastardly deed. Chaos.”

  The train eased its speed as it entered the Hoboken terminus

  “I am in the employ of the Secret Service,” he continued, “and I know whereof I speak.”

  He stood as the train came to a halt, reaching high for a leather strap.

  Mr. O’Neal watched as the man tucked his tennis racket under his arm and departed.

  Mauro’s mother ironed her son’s white cotton shirt, his brown short pants, his brown knee socks, and polished his black shoes with diluted vinegar, also replacing the news-papers that had covered the holes in their soles. After she bathed him, she watched as he dressed, and admonished him to remain as neat as he was at that moment.

  He grimaced as she dragged a comb through his thick curly hair.

  She handed him her last handkerchief. “Use it,” she said.