The Vets (Stephen Leather Thrillers) by Stephen Leather Read Free Book Online Page A

the positions were women, an unemployed actress who Lehman had once seen in a dental floss commercial and a middle-aged woman who reminded him of his mother. The men were a mixed bag, young thrusting guys in their twenties who worked standing up, pumping their fists in the air as they talked, middle-aged guys in staid suits who polished their spectacles between calls, and one old man in his sixties, a former mutual fund salesman who spoke with a marked stammer when he was on the phone but who had no speech problems when he chatted with the guys in the room. Each of the desks also had a red plastic covered pitch book, a Rolodex, a yellow order pad and a glass pot of pens and pencils. As the orders were taken over the phone they were placed on a metal spike and periodically a stocky, square-jawed man with a thick moustache walked around pulling the slips off the spikes and carrying them to his desk where he jotted down the details, marked them up on a white board on the wall behind him, and then dropped the papers into a large white bucket.
    The board showed the value of the orders taken so far that month. Lehman was in second place with 280,000 dollars. In the lead was the man with the stammer who had grossed 340,000 dollars. The stammer helped. It made his clients feel sorry for him and a few minutes into the pitch they’d usually be finishing his sentences for him. It was a hell of a technique and Lehman had nothing but admiration for the man. The wall to the left of the board was all glass but the blinds were drawn and the only illumination came from the fluorescent lights mounted in the ceiling.
    Two lights were flashing on the console but Lehman made no move to lift his receiver, figuring that he’d leave it up to one of the other slammers to do it. He’d just sold 25,000 dollars’ worth of shares in a non-existent oil and gas drilling company to a schoolteacher in San Francisco and he reckoned he deserved a couple of minutes to himself. He took another mouthful of Coke and put his feet up on his desk. Max Cilento stood up and with a black felt-tipped pen marked up the new figures. Gordon Dillman, the man with the stammer, had sold another 40,000 dollars and his lead had widened. Cilento turned around from the white board and grinned at Lehman. Lehman pulled a face and took his feet off the desk and began to flick through the reference cards which contained the details of all his clients.
    Cilento sat down and dumped the sales slips into the bucket and then checked the tape on the cassette deck on the table. Wires from the deck snaked along the floor and up the walls to four speakers mounted in the top corners of the boiler room from where the sounds of a busy brokering operation blared out: ringing telephones, dealers shouting share prices, secretaries typing. The sound effects helped keep the adrenaline levels of the slammers up but more importantly helped convince the suckers they were dealing with a busy, and successful, firm.
    Lehman raised his arms above his head and stretched like someone deprived of exercise for too long. He looked like a man who would be good at sports. He was a little over six feet tall and lean, clean-shaven and with dark brown hair which was just a shade too long to be neat and which he was always brushing out of his eyes. His eyebrows were bushy and Mephistophelian which made him appear vaguely sinister when he smiled and positively evil when he was angry. As he went through his cards his brow furrowed, giving him the look of one in pain or deeply troubled. In fact he was completely at ease; the look of anguish was his normal expression.
    “You’re lagging behind, Dan,” said Cilento. Cilento, who ran the boiler room operation for his brother, a Los Angeles-made-man, put a hand on Lehman’s shoulder. He squeezed and Lehman could feel the power in the large, sausage-like fingers. “Don’t let Dillman get away from you. Your reputation is at stake.”
    Lehman looked up at Cilento. They