Rigged by Ben Mezrich Read Free Book Online

Serena’s quiet breathing from the bedroom; she had fallen asleep sometime after midnight, after listening to him agonize about the decision for nearly three straight hours. He knew he had a whole day to decide—but he also knew that he wouldn’t get a second of sleep until he made the call, one way or the other.
    He took a deep breath and dialed Giovanni’s office number. Straight to voice mail, Harriet’s matronly voice echoing in his ear:
    “Leave a message for Mr. Giovanni after the tone.”
    David ran a hand through his hair, the decision made.
    “Mr. Giovanni, I’m quitting my job at Merrill tomorrow. I’ll be there Monday morning.”
    He could barely fucking believe it.
    He was now, officially, one of Giovanni’s Kids.

Chapter 6
    S EPTEMBER 15, 2002
    M onday morning, 8:59 A.M.
    At first, silence.
    A moment frozen in time, like a reflection caught on a pane of glass. Air choked with electric tension, every atomic particle seemingly on the verge of sudden and catastrophic motion. A massive hall with impossibly high ceilings, a warren of low computer tables and cubicled workstations spiraling out from a half-dozen circular pits. And the pits themselves, a few feet descended into the floor of the hall, crowded with men in strange bright jackets—blazers in patterns ranging from dark solids and pastels to intricate stripes and even plaids, some approximating a Jackson Pollock of swirls and even spots, all the colors of the rainbow. A rainbow frozen and hushed like the air around, pregnant with anticipation, exhilaration—and maybe even a little fear.
    Then—chaos.
    It began with a bell. Piercing, metallic, a sound that cut through the tense air and instantly shattered the metaphorical glass. Suddenly, the room exploded. The men in the Jackson Pollock jackets were shouting and physically shoving each other,jockeying for position. Hands were up in the air, fists clenching tiny slips of paper, hoarse voices shouting to be heard over the scuff of shoes, the whir of computers, and the metallic echo of the bell. The fists swung back and forth, the voices cried out, and the tiny slips of paper rained down toward the floor like confetti. Above it all, lights flashed and numbers splayed out across a magnificent, luminescent digital board that hung, precariously, from the ceiling.
    “Welcome to the asylum,” Reston whispered in David’s ear as they stood at the edge of the biggest of the pits, watching the chaos. David jumped back just in time to keep from getting clocked by a wildly gesturing trader in a barber-pole jacket. Reston grinned at him. The asylum. David thought it was a pretty good description of the place. Barely a blip on the radar of the outside world, this frantic trading floor known as the NYMEX was like nothing he had ever seen before. It had taken him twenty minutes slogging up and down the windswept streets of Lower Manhattan to find the place. Finally a cop standing in front of a barricade that had probably been up since 9/11 pointed the way. Lodged in one of the most secure buildings on earth—protected by dozens of armed guards, multiple X-ray scanners, a veritable pincushion of security cameras—and located at the very southernmost tip of Manhattan—as far south as David could go without tasting the Hudson—it was really like something out of a Hollywood movie. Reston had met him by the scanners in the lobby, then led him straight to the trading floor.
    “May as well start at the heart,” he’d said simply, “then work our way up to the brain and the soul.”
    The heart of the Merc seemed like a cardiac arrest waiting to happen. The traders in their brightly colored jackets were shouting so loud that their voices blended into one ear-shattering roar. The slips of paper that represented the only real record of their trades were already ankle-deep across the floor, and it was only a few minutes into the trading day.
    “Christ,” David said. “How does this possibly work?”
    “Biggest