A Bridge to Treachery From Extortion to Terror by Larry Crane Read Free Book Online Page A

remnant leaves sail down to collide with eroded gravestones or be sent spinning off the finials of the wrought iron fence. The sounds of construction further down Broadway enveloped him. The April wind swirled down from above, the cold sneaking in through the open collar of his coat. His eyes moved up the wall of the building across the graveyard and came to rest on a mocking gargoyle near the roof line. “Laugh, you bastard,” he muttered.
     
    On his feet, Lou walked the winding path through the churchyard’s sandstone slabs and benches with his hands plunged deep into his coat pockets. An old man, wrapped in a filthy black overcoat, lay sleeping by the stairs going down to Church Street. Lou kept walking toward the twin World Trade Towers ahead.
     
    Slow down. It’s new, that’s all. Play it out. It’s a chance. Take it.
     

     
    Chapter Four
     

     
    “Call me Barry,” Westover said, above the buzz of fifteen other conversations in his trading room. “Where’d you run into Patty?”
     
    “Hey, it’s a long story,” Lou said, imitating Westover’s bantering tone.
     
    “She’s a piece of work, isn’t she? Sharp, though.”
     
    “A legend in her own time.”
     
    “You bet. Listen, Lou, I know this is going to work out terrific, so let’s not bullshit. All I really need is good execution.”
     
    “Good execution you shall have,” Lou said.
     
    “Forget about confirming calls and all that. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume everything went fine and I’ll be looking for the confirms the following morning.”
     
    “Gotcha, Barry. No stroking.”
     
    “Put me down for a million of the new Puerto Rico Highways that Pierson Browne’s managing and five hundred thousand of the Bergen County Sewer Authorities that closed out last week.”
     
    “A million Puerto Ricos, five hundred thousand Bergen County Sewers. You got it,” Lou said.
     
    It felt like a fish bone in his throat, a jab of something like panic. He could feel the heat rising up across his cheekbones. He didn’t move from his seat until he began to feel calm returning. Then he stood up and walked slowly all around the perimeter of the bullpen. He sat again and scribbled out orders, then stuffed them into the pneumatic tube cylinder. He punched the button and watched the cylinder fly away to the order room with a loud whoosh .
     
    The next morning, the call came before the market opened. Buy five thousand shares of Inland Steel, five thousand Kennecott, and five thousand International Nickel. Barry mumbled something about probably being a little late getting into the basic metals.
     
    On the third morning, Barry called just before the market closed, asked about the Dow, and promptly ordered the sale of four thousand Proctor and Gamble and the purchase of three thousand Du Pont with the proceeds. Those three days rounded out the pay period for Lou with the largest total of net commissions he ever heard of in a retail office, Buck included, let alone his personal high for a month. Forty-five thousand dollars in gross commissions to his account, counting the piddling eighteen hundred bucks he’d managed to scrape together in the preceding twenty days.
     
    * * *
     
    “Twenty-seven and a half percent of forty-five thousand bucks is what?” he asked, as he and Maggie giggled over the breakfast coffee.
     
    “What did you do for this man, Lou?” Mag asked, lasciviously.
     
    “Six thousand, eight hundred and seventy-five bucks, net,” Lou said, looking up from his scratch paper. “In one month. How much does that add up to in a year?”
     
    “You bust your stones for four years trying to get some of these old farts to part with a thousand dollars, and then strike it rich just because Patty Buck likes the cut of your spinnaker? I don’t get it.”
     
    “Eighty-two thousand! Do you realize that, Maggie? Eighty-two thousand dollars!”
     
    “I think the computer’s in heat.”
     
    “It’s like a vending machine,