Black Fridays by Michael Sears Read Free Book Online Page B

before filling a customer order—though it’s illegal. They fade their bids—backing away, dropping their price when the customer wants to sell—when they know the market hasn’t moved. They often mismark their book—falsely pricing the securities they own—to smooth out the bad days. And a few brazenly trade on insider information. Sometimes it is surprising when they get caught, but never “shocking.” Mostly it’s just sad. But unless it was really egregious, these things were all handled internally. They don’t usually draw the regulators’ attention unless there is a lot more to it. I was interested to see what had the sharks homing in on this guy.
    “You’ve got me. I’m hooked. Let’s get to it. What currencies did this guy trade?”
    “Ahhh,” Stockman said in a long exhale. He raised one finger and shook it like he was doing the hokey pokey. “Mr. Sanders was in fixed income. Bonds. Eugene Barilla runs that department for us. You may have run into him at some point. He can fill you in on the details.”
    “Hold up. I don’t know squat about bonds. I don’t want to talk my way out of a paycheck here, but I don’t know what I’ll be able to do for you.”
    “It is not your product knowledge that will be of help to us. There are any number of ex–bond traders who could do that. It is your expertise in other matters that we want.”
    “Because I’m a crook.” I wanted to see if he would squirm in the face of directness.
    He did. “Uh, well. Many top IT security people began as teenage hackers.”
    It sounded like he must have rehearsed that line, too.
    “That’s a flattering comparison,” I said. It wasn’t, but I figured Stockman was much too full of himself to recognize irony.
    “I have drawn up a check for the first week.” He handed me a slim envelope. “Speak with Gwendolyn about getting yourself some space to work. She can set up your interviews as well.”
    I tried to appear casual about taking a twenty-five-thousand-dollar check and sliding it into my jacket pocket. It would appease my parole officer and replenish some of my rapidly disappearing funds. I planned on making sure the job lasted the full two weeks. I wanted that second check.
    Stockman stood up, wiped his palm on the seam of his pants, and shook my hand. The three-inch riser under his desk helped, but he still had to look up to me.
    —
    GWEN PUNCHED IN the code on the security pad and the door swung open. The familiar hum of a trading floor in full mid-morning operation rolled over us. I became instantly hyper-aware—every sense heightened, sharpened. I felt smarter, younger, and fearless. Once upon a time, I had started every working day feeling like that.
    She walked me along the football-field-length floor to the row of executive offices at the far end. The smell of money hung in the air. Money to be made or lost. It was not the slightly rancid odor of consumption or the hallucinogenic aroma of a casino; it was the clean, pure, fresh scent of money for its own sake, trading hands in the blink of an eye.
    The air sizzled with the undercurrent of barely controlled panic. Blood in the water.
    Voices called out.
    “I’ve got a 29 bid for your size.”
    “We’re firm at 30. We’re working an order. He’s not going to move.”
    “Listen up, people. We are a seller of dollars. At the market. Get me some bids.”
    “What kind of size?”
    “Surprise me.”
    “Hey! Fannie Mae on the tape!”
    “Fuck! What now?”
    The New York Stock Exchange, the futures exchanges in Chicago, New York, and Singapore, every trading floor in every major bank in every money center in the world—they all spoke one language. They all had the same buzz. Money moving quickly. A drug that, once ingested, doesn’t ever leave your system. I was hooked for life, and at that moment I was as close to it as I was ever going to be again in this lifetime.
    Gwen knocked once on the door to a glass-enclosed office and ushered me in. She