The clearing house rep lay still, save for one hand undulating in the current as though it were waving. Blood leaked from his wound, clouding the water before it was swept downstream.
Ankle-deep in the icy water, David stared at the scene in disbelief. Then panic overtook him, propelling him out of the river and back onto the walkway, where he tried to collect himself.
He was alone. No gunboat, no security patrol, no pedestrians or loitering homeless. Even the pelicans were gone. Unable to think of what else to do, David began walking toward the Exchange. As the building loomed in front of him, he slowed his pace and looked toward the Hudson.
Maybe I should... He had a decent term life insurance policy, enough so that Malia could start over. David veered off the walkway toward the water, his shoes squishing on the gravel.
“Hey, Dash!”
David turned to see Vigneri lumbering toward him, a cigarette dangling from his fingers. Almost unconsciously, David reached into his pocket for an antacid tablet.
“Christ, I hate these stupid smoking laws.” Vigneri exhaled a stream of smoke through his nose and eyed the roll of antacids in David’s hand, though he didn’t seem to notice his wet feet. “The Exchange should have bowls of those on the Floor for days like today.” He barked out a laugh. David flinched at the sound.
“Jesus, you’re twitchy. That’s what holding size will do to you.” Vigneri dragged on his cigarette. “So, did you catch my signal and get out in time? That reporter I used to date told me about the ’cane missing the Hub right before it went out over the air. I got short, made a little money.”
David’s mouth was so dry he could barely speak. “Not exactly.”
Vigneri grimaced. “Ah shit, Dash.” He dropped his cigarette onto the gravel and ground it out with his shoe, then glanced at his watch. “Close is in thirty minutes.”
For a moment, David watched the river slide past. He thought he could see tendrils of red in the water. “Let’s go.”
They walked back to the Exchange, David’s wet pant cuffs flapping against his ankles. David dully watched his ID pass through the card reader at Security, then followed Vigneri to the elevator.
The natural-gas pit was in full cry, as frenetic as it had been that morning. Out of habit, David glanced at the quote board, then looked again. Gas was trading at thirteen, up three dollars from the opening.
His eyes flicked to the television monitor. The red swirl had been replaced by a blaze of flames leaping into the sky. David stared at the image, struggling to make sense of it, as a roar went up from the pit — the signal that the price had hit another new high.
Vigneri broke off talking with another trader. “Can you fucking believe it? When they evacuated the Hub, someone left a valve open at the gas processing plant. The whole damn place blew up! Gas is going through the roof!” Vigneri punched David on the arm. “You’re making a killing, you lucky bastard.”
David was stunned. Because Kinder hadn’t sold the two hundred contracts, his account was up four million dollars. And Malia’s seat was safe.
His heart beat faster as he mentally replayed the scene at the waterfront. He and Kinder had been alone. Vigneri had chalked up his nervousness to holding a big position. Hope spread through David’s chest. My Big Day.
Against Floor rules, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. Punching in Malia’s number, David checked the quote board again. As soon as he told her the good news, he’d sell. No way was he making the same mistake twice.
Underneath the electronic display, a security camera slowly panned the area. Just like the ones posted along the riverbank.
Feeding Frenzy
by Tim Broderick
40 Wall Street
A terrorizing demonstration
by Jim Fusilli
23 Wall Street
An aptitude with higher mathematics earned him an enviable position at the nation’s most powerful bank, but he soon lost it to petulance. “No good will ever come of you,” said the paymaster as he tallied his severance, wagging an ancient finger. “Not by half are you as clever as you believe.”
With a smirk on his lips, the young man departed the bank’s gray, bunker-like offices. By the time he stepped into the bustle of Broad Street, he decided the events that had led to his dismissal required redress.
He told himself neither the prissy clerk who declared his work ill conceived nor the secretary who deemed his advances untoward was worthy of his consideration. The creaking paymaster was a cross-eyed dolt.
Soon he realized not even the attenuation of J.P. Morgan himself would compensate for the unwarranted assault on his character.
By the time he reached Cortlandt Street, he knew that only the institution itself would merit the full force of his intellect in the service of his sense of Justice. Taking the Sixth Avenue El uptown, he began his withdrawal into what would be a lengthy period of unwavering purpose.
When he returned to the corner of Wall and Broad streets twenty-one months later, on the third Thursday of September 1920, it was to execute a plan that, in his mind, was perfect.
Mauro sat on the brownstone steps, elbows on scuffed knees, and gazed doe-eyed into the summer evening, his ten-year-old mind all but unoccupied by thought.
The slight, round-headed boy was unaware he had been judged insufficient by the nuns, who recommended to his mother that she return with him to Terracina. Paterson teemed with Italian immigrants, they explained carefully, and only the brightest among them would find purchase in America.
Stunned, Mauro’s mother took her son by the hand to the public school. The sympathetic vice principal, a Mr. Piatti, un Milanese, was made to understand that the boy was the family’s future, the reason they had come to northern New Jersey from southern Italy. Mauro was placed in the third grade class for slow learners. When September arrived, he would be the oldest among his new classmates.
Widowed by a trolley accident, Mauro’s mother took in laundry and repaired garments for her Essex Street neighbors, many of whom considered use of her services an act of charity. Among her customers was the man who moved in three floors above her basement apartment, the rare American in the Italian quarter. She saw him as quiet and respectful with a dash of charm, despite his angular face that dry skin had reddened at the nose and pale eyes of a peculiar aspect she could not identify.
Each Tuesday, he left a plump pillowcase outside her door, a crisp dollar bill atop his soiled clothes.