That Night at the Palace by L.D. Watson Read Free Book Online Page B

right if nothing ever changed, but as Darnell “Shakes” Blankenship eventually came to know, in time, everything will change.
    The first problem came when he got the bills for one of Dianna’s shopping trips. She had spent a thousand dollars on clothes. One pair of shoes cost two hundred American dollars! That was the beginning of a series of fights that culminated when Darnell came home from a trip to see the New York Exchange with the two partners. It had been rumored that the firm might open a New York branch, something it had shied away from over the years. But the partners were seriously considering it now that they had someone dependable and smart to run it. Darnell was full of excitement when he returned home, knowing that Dianna would love New York, and hoping the move would help them iron out the problems in their marriage.
    When he walked into the apartment the place was crowded with people, none of whom he had ever met. Dianna had been to the theater earlier in the evening and was hosting a party. That angered him enough, but upon searching the apartment, he couldn’t even find her. Finally, she turned up in the bedroom, drunk, half-dressed, and with another man.
    That night Darnell packed his belongings and moved into the Drake. The first thing the next morning he went to the bank to make sure Dianna didn’t get a chance to clean him out. He was too late. The way she spent money, she had probably emptied it out before he went to New York. He didn’t worry, though, because he only had a few thousand in there anyway. Darnell was a smart investor. He had money spread out all over the market. In fact, he had it so well spread out that her divorce attorneys would be hard-pressed to find out how much he had.
    The divorce was as smooth as glass. Sure enough, her attorneys had no clue how much he was worth, and the settlement was based on less than half of what was really invested. She would keep the apartment, which he would pay for, and she would receive a monthly stipend for the next twenty years or until she remarried. Of course, Darnell made a grand performance, pretending that the stipend was far more than he could afford. But then, as soon as he walked out of the judge’s chamber, he made arrangements for the stipend to be paid from the interest generated from just one stock. He actually laughed at the thought of how well he pulled that off.
    All things considered, getting rid of Dianna would cost a lot less than staying married to her. The settlement and all financial arrangements required to finalize it were signed and settled on October 23, 1929, twenty-four hours before what became known as “Black Thursday,” the day that millions of investors began to dump stocks.
    The effects of the crash were devastating. Darnell had less than a hundred dollars in cash. His stocks had added up to something in excess of eighty thousand dollars. Now he had nothing but useless paper. At least that’s how some people saw it. But Darnell knew the market as well as anyone. As he saw it, the market had bottomed out. This, he argued to his clients, was the time to buy, even if you had to borrow to do so. And that is exactly what he did. Then, five days later, came the big crash. October 29, 1929. That date would go down in history as the infamous Black Tuesday.
    Not only did the stocks drop even further, he had bought on margin, which meant that he had borrowed to get them. He wasn’t just broke - he was fifty thousand dollars in debt. Even if he could find someone to buy the stocks, he’d be lucky to come out with a thousand dollars for everything. Even that was a pipedream because anyone who had the money sure wasn’t going to spend it on stocks.
    The only thing he could do was sit on it. Of course, he moved out of the Drake right away. Then he arranged a meeting with Dianna and her attorneys. They would simply have to understand that there was no money. This, he was sure, was a temporary setback and in a few months