Dead Cat Bounce by Nic Bennett Read Free Book Online Page A

deeply. “I think I’m a Whistler then,” he said very seriously.
    The Baron burst out laughing and punched Jonah on the shoulder. “That’s why I brought you here, sonny. Now watch this. I know you’re going to love it as much as I do.” He motioned toward the double desk with his hand. “You will have noticed that I, unlike my faithful followers, have no screens on my desk.”
    Jonah nodded. The Baron grinned mischievously, reached under the desk, and pressed a button. Suddenly the desk partition in front of him began to rise, revealing four screens.
    “Yeah!” Jonah cried out. “It’s like on a spaceship!”
    “Wait,” said the Baron, his grin growing. “There’s more.”
    Now the sides the desk began to rise to reveal four more screens so that each person sitting in the Cockpit had four screens of his own: two in front and two on the side.
    “Voilà! Le Cockpit,” said the Baron, pushing the side screens outward slightly so that it was possible to see all four at once, and pressing another button so that they all switched on.
    “That is so cool!” exclaimed Jonah. “My dad only has two.”
    “Well, your dad doesn’t exactly do the kind of work we do here. None of the Drizzlers do.”
    Jonah nodded sagely, suppressing the burgeoning sense that he was somehow betraying his father by being here. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing to a screen that was now flashing at least five hundred lights.
    “That, sonny,” said the Baron, “is the comms board. The phone is everything here. It’s our link to the markets and clients. To make a call we just hit the buttons on the comms board, and we’re through.”
    Jonah remembered his dad had done something similar to retrieve that man Scrotycz’s call.
    The lights on the comms board blinked, beckoned, burned—refusing to let go of Jonah’s attention as he tried to take in the other screens in front of him. One came to life with letters and numbers in different colors; another had an e-mail program on it; the last looked like it contained a list of some sort. All needed passwords to get in.
    “Are those all computers?” Jonah asked.
    “Yes,” said the Baron reverentially.
    “And what’s that one?” Jonah pointed at the monitor that showed a colorful jumble of things.
    “That’s the Bloomberg terminal. It displays all the prices and market data.”
    “I can’t believe you’ve got so many computers,” Jonah marveled, his voice hushed but full of awe.
    “Yes. We need them though. The financial markets never sleep, and London, or specifically the part we call the City, is probably the largest international financial center in the world. Trillions of pounds, dollars, euros, yen, you name it, change hands each day within a square mile of where we’re sitting.”
    Jonah had no real idea what he was talking about, but the numbers were big. Trillions. That was millions of millions. That was seriously big.
    “Okay,” the Baron continued, “so this screen you won’t need to worry about. It shows messages from other traders at Hellcat and other banks.” The Baron pointed to the monitor that Jonah had assumed was used to display e-mail. “This screen on the left is the one you’ll use today as it shows all our trades and trading positions.”
    Jonah stared up at the screen, stymied by the sheer awesomeness of the trading floor’s inner workings.
    “When a trader makes a trade, he writes out a ticket, which will go to you. You’ll input it into the computer so that it comes up here.” The Baron paused, checking to see that Jonah understood what he was saying.
    Jonah nodded.
    “Dog and the others will probably tell you that I’m a bit old fashioned—”
    “Wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true!” Dog exclaimed, interrupting the Baron.
    “Aren’t you supposed to be working?” the Baron rejoined, his voice taking on a harsher tone. “This conversation is between me and young Mr. Lightbody.”
    Dog blanched and returned to his