A Bridge to Treachery From Extortion to Terror by Larry Crane Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Larry Crane
Tags: Espionage, Military, Revenge, Politics, Terrorism, Betrayal, Army, Army Ranger, strike team, collateral damage
Mag. Someone slaps in a dollar and the Snickers bar falls out. The machine couldn’t care less who dropped the coin; once it gets going, no one wants to know anything. Heaven forbid, they might step on some tender toes. Once your little name is put down as the man to call, they’ll keep calling until they get another little name. Nobody asks questions. Why should they? How can they? There are certain ways these accounts get set up. Mag, believe me, I could die tomorrow and they’d still be calling me to place orders. It’s beautiful.”
* * *
At first he acted as if nothing was new. Keep cool. Stick with the system. Put in all of the normal calls to drum up business: obligatory calls to the steady customers just to check in on the market and to keep them thinking in the trading way, and prospecting calls to people who had returned one of his mailers. Cater to the gaffers who sit on the sofa staring at the electronic tape marching along on the front wall and then stop at the desk to ask a question about a stock dividend or the latest hot tip from the research department.
After the third day of Westover calls, the old song and dance went right in the toilet. No way was he going to babysit the dorks out there or break his neck on the phone trying to cajole nervous Nellies into sticking their first thousand dollars into the stock market.
The office was dark and quiet when Lou plopped behind his desk in the front of the bullpen. It was a large, open space where all the beginning “account executives” cut their teeth until they were either washed out or they moved into one of the glassed-in offices spaced around the outside wall. Brian Mutcheller, a trainee right out of school, was Lou’s only company in the office. Mutch hunched over a copy of the Wall Street Journal in the back row. The ticker was stopped on the last message of the preceding day’s trading:
VOLUME 2,567,458,123 SHS TRADED
The green letters on the Quotron still recorded his last request of yesterday: IAL 32 ¼. Only the lights from a couple of offices and the fluorescent lights in the back of the pen near Mutcheller kept the office from total darkness. Lou sat back with his feet on the desk.
Just wait. Right? Obviously it was one of the institutional accounts normally handled in the city, where they have direct access to the research department and the syndicate people. Hell, Westover still had to be in touch with those guys. He seemed to know the details of all the latest syndicate deals and what the research mavens were pushing. So wait. Wait. Just wait.
He walked to the back of the bullpen toward the rear corner of the floor: Calvin Swisher’s office. Inside, he placed a little note on his desk: “Cal, can you fit me in for a couple of minutes this morning?”
Swisher hadn’t said a word to him since Lou had stopped into his office to report on what Buck had said. Swisher had to know what was going on. He saw every trade that left the place, but he had chosen to stay away and was going to let Lou come to him.
* * *
It was a year ago now since he had gone to Swisher looking for other answers.
“Cal, listen. I want you to do something for me.”
“Shoot”, Cal said.
“I know you stuck your neck out for me...”
“You’re quitting?”
“No. I’m not quitting, and I don’t have something else to go to. I just want you to ask around for me in town.”
“What, go looking for something in operations?” he said.
“Operations, anything. I’m not making it here. We both know it.”
Swisher reached down into his briefcase at his side and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “I’m looking at your sales aptitude scores, here. It says you’re a sure thing. Psychologist’s recommendation, same thing.”
“It doesn’t matter what they say, Cal.”
“The hell it doesn’t! They’re the reason I signed you on in the first place, pal.”
“They
* * *
At first he acted as if nothing was new. Keep cool. Stick with the system. Put in all of the normal calls to drum up business: obligatory calls to the steady customers just to check in on the market and to keep them thinking in the trading way, and prospecting calls to people who had returned one of his mailers. Cater to the gaffers who sit on the sofa staring at the electronic tape marching along on the front wall and then stop at the desk to ask a question about a stock dividend or the latest hot tip from the research department.
After the third day of Westover calls, the old song and dance went right in the toilet. No way was he going to babysit the dorks out there or break his neck on the phone trying to cajole nervous Nellies into sticking their first thousand dollars into the stock market.
The office was dark and quiet when Lou plopped behind his desk in the front of the bullpen. It was a large, open space where all the beginning “account executives” cut their teeth until they were either washed out or they moved into one of the glassed-in offices spaced around the outside wall. Brian Mutcheller, a trainee right out of school, was Lou’s only company in the office. Mutch hunched over a copy of the Wall Street Journal in the back row. The ticker was stopped on the last message of the preceding day’s trading:
VOLUME 2,567,458,123 SHS TRADED
The green letters on the Quotron still recorded his last request of yesterday: IAL 32 ¼. Only the lights from a couple of offices and the fluorescent lights in the back of the pen near Mutcheller kept the office from total darkness. Lou sat back with his feet on the desk.
Just wait. Right? Obviously it was one of the institutional accounts normally handled in the city, where they have direct access to the research department and the syndicate people. Hell, Westover still had to be in touch with those guys. He seemed to know the details of all the latest syndicate deals and what the research mavens were pushing. So wait. Wait. Just wait.
He walked to the back of the bullpen toward the rear corner of the floor: Calvin Swisher’s office. Inside, he placed a little note on his desk: “Cal, can you fit me in for a couple of minutes this morning?”
Swisher hadn’t said a word to him since Lou had stopped into his office to report on what Buck had said. Swisher had to know what was going on. He saw every trade that left the place, but he had chosen to stay away and was going to let Lou come to him.
* * *
It was a year ago now since he had gone to Swisher looking for other answers.
“Cal, listen. I want you to do something for me.”
“Shoot”, Cal said.
“I know you stuck your neck out for me...”
“You’re quitting?”
“No. I’m not quitting, and I don’t have something else to go to. I just want you to ask around for me in town.”
“What, go looking for something in operations?” he said.
“Operations, anything. I’m not making it here. We both know it.”
Swisher reached down into his briefcase at his side and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “I’m looking at your sales aptitude scores, here. It says you’re a sure thing. Psychologist’s recommendation, same thing.”
“It doesn’t matter what they say, Cal.”
“The hell it doesn’t! They’re the reason I signed you on in the first place, pal.”
“They
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