The Day Trader (23 page)

“You watched?”

“She asked me to come that first night because she was nervous.”

“You watched her?” I ask again, incredulous. “You watched her perform?”

“I just wanted to make sure she was okay.”

“My God.”

“I tried to make her stop, Augustus. I swear to you. I reminded her in January that she had promised to quit after Christmas, but she wouldn’t listen. She was addicted to the thrill and the money. She kept on coming. I threatened to tell you, but she didn’t care.”

“Why
didn’t
you tell me?” I yell, ready to drag Vincent from the limo and beat him senseless. “Why?”

“I couldn’t,” he says. “I couldn’t hurt you that way.” He coughs, trying to hide his emotion. “I knew you’d think I had let you down, and I couldn’t handle that. Please forgive me, Augustus. Please.”

I look out the window at the driver who’s still puffing on his cigarette, oblivious to my pain. I want to blame Vincent for everything, but I can’t. And it isn’t his plea for mercy that makes me change my mind about beating him to a bloody pulp. It’s the horrible realization that the blame for all of this could just as easily be heaped on my shoulders. If I had been a success and made enough money, maybe Melanie would never have considered her double life. If I had been a better provider, then she wouldn’t have needed the cash.

And no one forced Melanie up on that stage. Ultimately, it was her decision to show her body to men she didn’t know. Maybe in the end it had little to do with the money anyway. Maybe it was about something else.

I feel Vincent’s hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, buddy. I’m really sorry.”

CHAPTER 14

I’m not a naive man, so how could I have gone so long without discovering what Melanie was doing? The clues were right there for me to see. Late nights two or three times a week. Crumpled cash on her bureau in the morning. Exotic perfumes. Lacy lingerie hidden deep in her bedroom closet.

I’ve always heard that if you’re playing poker and you haven’t figured out who the sucker at the table is after the first few hands, you’re the sucker. I suppose Melanie, Vincent, Frank Taylor, and I were all playing a form of poker, and I turned out to be the sucker. But it feels more like we were playing Russian roulette, and I took the bullet. Of course, it was Melanie who paid the ultimate price.

I had rationalized her behavior by convincing myself that our relationship was just going through a stage that would eventually pass, but I didn’t delude myself completely. In those dark moments late at night, when the phone at her office just rang and rang, I figured she must have been having an affair. But I was certain her lover was Frank Taylor. Like some jilted teenager who’d had his cheerleader girlfriend stolen away by a teammate, I did away with him dozens of times in my imagination to try to satisfy the rage, jealousy, and hatred that filled me. But of course the fantasies never satisfied me.

I should probably hate Vincent too. He’s probably nothing but a damn liar and was having sex with Melanie all along. After all, he introduced her to a place where she took off her clothes for money. He probably watched her onstage lots of times, maybe even requested some of those same intimate performances I saw going on at the tables around the stage last night. But I’ll never know for certain what went on between them because he’ll never come clean with me. He’ll swear to me until the day he dies that nothing was going on.

On nights Melanie was out late she would call most of the time to let me know when she was about to leave the office—usually around midnight. She’d call to tell me that she’d just about finished whatever menial tasks Taylor had assigned her that evening and that she’d see me in about an hour. She’d be sweet and say how much she missed me. Sometimes, especially at first, I’d mention the fact that I’d tried to call her several times during the evening. She’d explain that she had been away from her desk copying something or working in a file room, and that was why she hadn’t been able to hear the phone. Now I know the truth.

When she finally made it home, she would head straight to the bathroom without a word and draw a hot bath. When she came out, she would crawl into bed, turn off the light, and roll away from me. I would caress her shoulder and try to talk to her about my unanswered calls to her office. She would tell me that she was just trying to do her part to help our financial situation, and ask how I could question her loyalty. Then she’d say she was dead tired and needed sleep, and she’d push my hand away from her warm skin. Toward the end, even on nights when she made it home at a normal time, she’d pick a fight about something trivial as soon as she walked in the door. She shut me out, until I felt completely isolated.

I thought about installing caller ID so I could check the number she was calling from on nights she was out late, but that was when my rationalization kicked in. I told myself we couldn’t afford things that weren’t absolutely necessary, including caller ID. Maybe down deep I didn’t really want to know where she was.

Vincent and I said nothing at all to each other last night during the half-hour drive from the Two O’Clock Club to Bedford. Not even good-bye when the limousine pulled up alongside my car. An evening that had begun so well ended in disaster.

I didn’t get home until after three, but I still couldn’t sleep. So after two hours of tossing and turning, I got up, showered, and returned to Bedford, intent on losing myself in my work.

During the drive in I still couldn’t get Melanie out of my mind. I couldn’t stop imagining that scene at the Two O’Clock Club—her up on that stage with all those men watching. The absolute focus of their attention. The drunken applause as each piece of clothing came sliding slowly off her body. The wild cheers as she exposed everything.

It’s a few minutes after seven in the morning as I reach for my third cup of coffee. Someone’s coming down the aisle, and I look up from my computer screen and strain my neck to see who it is.

It’s Daniel and he walks straight into my cubicle. He doesn’t normally get in this early, but then he isn’t usually trying to close on a five-thousand-dollar loan.

“Morning,” he says quietly.

Without answering I take one more sip of coffee, then place the mug down and reach across the desk for my checkbook. It’s a miracle I remembered to bring it with me this morning, but I try to honor my commitments.

“There’s no need for that, Augustus.”

I glance up curiously from the check I’ve already half scrawled. “I told you I’d lend you the money, Daniel. I won’t back out of our agreement. My word’s good.”

“I appreciate that, but it’s all right,” he says, a resigned smile coming to his face. As if he’s lost a battle, but defeat hasn’t turned out to be so bad. “I don’t need the loan anymore.”

“What happened? Did Seaver cut you a break?”

“No, nothing like that. Seaver’s a shark. He’ll be coming to my cubicle sometime this morning for his money.”

“Then how did you work things out?”

“I took your advice. I called my father last night after I got home and had a chance to sober up.” Daniel sighs. “That’s the hardest call I’ve ever had to make. I had to admit that maybe I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was. Then I told him I needed the cash.”

“And he agreed to give it to you?”

“He did when I told him I’d made a very bad mistake leaving Georgetown, and that if he were still willing to pay my tuition, I’d go back this fall and finish my degree. I started to tell him that I’d understand if he didn’t want to shell out the cash, but he said not to worry. He didn’t even make me beg like I thought he would. He went pretty easy on me.”

“I’m glad.”

“It’s been a long time since he and I have talked like that,” Daniel says quietly. “About things that matter. It feels good to know I have someone I can count on when I really need help.”

I always wanted that kind of relationship with my father. Maybe I at least helped Daniel find it.

He shakes my hand. “I needed somebody to knock some sense into me, Augustus. I was acting like an idiot,” he says. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” I can tell by the way he looks me straight in the eye that he’s learned something important over the past twenty-four hours.

He’s about to go but hesitates. “You okay, Augustus?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You look beat.”

“Nah, I’m fine.”

He hesitates by my desk a moment longer, then heads for his own cubicle.

I remember that my phone is still forwarded to voice mail, so I switch it back, then check for messages. There’s only one—the one that came yesterday afternoon. As I listen to it, I forget everything. My despair, my exhaustion, my satisfaction over helping Daniel. My breath quickens, I grip the phone tightly, and I hunch over my desk. Suddenly I’m numb.

The message is from a man named Scott Snyder who says he’s representing the Great Western Insurance Company and he’s calling in regard to the death of Melanie McKnight. Snyder’s got a deep voice and speaks with what sounds like a Brooklyn wiseguy accent. He says the insurance company won’t send me the death benefit proceeds until he’s had a chance to sit down with me and ask a few questions. He tries to use nonthreatening language while he goes into detail about slayer statutes and being unable to check appropriate boxes on the insurance claim until we meet. But the tone of his voice makes me think he might as well be telling me he’s going to hack off my fingers with an ax if I don’t tell him exactly what he wants to hear.

Snyder leaves a number for me to call at the end of his message, and I have to keep replaying the message to make certain I’ve written the numbers correctly because he races through the digits like he’s double-parked. When I hang up the receiver, I’m sweating like mad. I’ve had too much caffeine this morning.

Mary arrives around nine and leans over the cubicle partition to talk as soon as she’s put her pocketbook down. “I’m looking forward to dinner tonight,” she says. “This restaurant is supposed to be very nice. It’s been written up in the
Post
a few times and gotten great reviews.”

I’d forgotten all about her invitation. I’m in no mood to chaperone her anywhere, and in fairness to both of us, I’d be terrible company. “Mary, I think I’m coming down with something, and I just want to go home tonight right after work and sleep it off. Would you mind if I took a rain check?”

“You’ll be fine by this afternoon,” she says confidently. “We’ll have lots of fun.” With that she’s off to the ladies’ room, giving me no chance to argue.

Just before the nine-thirty opening a number of large technology companies report lousy quarterly earnings and the markets crater at the bell. The Wall Street gurus have been predicting bad news for several days, and when it actually hits, the reaction is devastating. Within five minutes the Nasdaq is off two hundred points and the Bedford trading floor has turned to chaos. As if a switch has been flipped, people are suddenly screaming and cursing at the top of their lungs. The noise level is three times its normal volume.

Slammer didn’t make it to his desk until just minutes before the opening bell—which is unusual—and he’s totally unprepared for the disaster. Over the partition it sounds like a barroom brawl. He shouts and repeatedly kicks a metal trash can beneath his desk. He didn’t close out all of his long positions last night, and the prices of those stocks have dropped off the table this morning with the negative earnings reports. The bid sides of his positions are falling at terminal velocity, and he can’t find the rip cords on their parachutes.

“Jesus freaking Christ!” he shouts, hurling what sounds like a stapler across his desk. “This is a joke!”

“Having fun this morning, Slammer?” I ask through the partition.

I realize that my comment may spark a volcanic reaction, but I don’t care. I’m in no mood for his attitude.

“Screw you, Gussie,” comes the response. “You piece of shit.”

Like a rocket, I’m out of my chair and on my feet. “I warned you, Slammer,” I shout, bolting out of my cubicle toward his. Above the chaos on the trading floor, I hear Mary scream at me to stop, and in my peripheral vision I see Roger and Daniel leap up from their chairs. But I’m laser-locked on the short man with the crewcut who has been the bane of my Bedford existence, and everything else blurs around me as I sprint toward him.

My self-control has finally and completely evaporated. I’ve been trying to deal calmly with the fact that my murdered wife has turned out to be a total stranger, but I can’t stop myself from erupting at this little prick who can’t keep his damn mouth shut. No one could blame me for this, I think to myself as adrenaline pumps through me at the prospect of a fight I realize I’ve wanted since the beginning. We’ll see what kind of Army Ranger training Slammer really has. I’m going to rip him limb from limb. I’m going to smash his face into his computer monitor. I’m going to make him pay for what Melanie has done to me.

As I race around the corner of his cubicle, I see Slammer reach into his briefcase and smoothly draw from it the huge .44 Magnum revolver that Mary was absolutely certain didn’t exist. He points the barrel directly at my chest, and I freeze, six feet away from him. I’ve never had a gun aimed at me before, and it’s an amazingly sobering experience. What impresses me most is how calmly he produces the shiny silver weapon with the black handle—like an experienced gunslinger drawing from his holster. He isn’t fast or slow, just silky smooth. He times it so the weapon comes into view exactly as I enter his cubicle. As if he doesn’t want me to realize what he’s doing until I reach his cubicle because I might be able to turn away and escape if I see what’s happening too soon. But now I can’t move. My shoes are glued to the floor because the crazy-calm expression on his face tells me he’s capable of anything.

“What are you going to do now, Gus?” Slammer cocks the .44, then waves it menacingly at Mary, Roger, and Daniel in turn. “Don’t move,” he warns each of them. Then the barrel is back on me.

I’m vaguely aware of people rushing for the trading floor exits. They’re shrieking and shouting and climbing all over one another to get out. I glance over at Mary and she’s sitting at her desk, back ramrod straight, hands over her mouth, unable to move. Roger and Daniel look like freeze-frames with their arms held oddly away from their bodies and their eyes wide.