The Trade (18 page)

Hal sensed the technique and backed off.

"Yeah sure. Think about it. But I've got to
know by Friday alright?” Hal asked.

"Alright,” Jay answered. Hal left. Bill and
Jay sat back down when he was gone.

"That's a hell of an offer,” Bill said.

"Hal's an asshole,” Jay countered.

"A rich, powerful asshole,” Bill said. “A
rich, powerful asshole who has Angus’ ear and who could retire or
get retired any day and leave you in charge,” Bill said.

Jay paused, thought. "What do you know about
CTSG?" Jay asked.

"Not much,” Bill lied. "Whatever they want
they get. They have a big budget, the latest equipment, the hottest
people and unbelievable pressure. They pay so much because people
burn out fast. You get in, you make your dough and you get out.
Some guys over there retire when they're thirty-five. These guys
buy and sell countries before lunch,” Bill explained. There was a
sound of awe in his voice.

"What about you?" Jay asked. His sense of
loyalty was tugging at his conscience.

"What about me?" Bill asked.

"How do you feel about all this?"

"How do I feel? How do you feel?" Bill
responded. It was obvious he wanted Jay to make up his own mind.
Make his own commitment. Bill could see the confusion in Jay's
face.

"Maybe you ought to not make up your mind on
the spot,” Bill counseled. "Do some paperwork, talk to your folks
or somebody. Wasn’t there some lawyer back home you liked to bounce
ideas off?” Bill said.

“
Yeah there is,” Jay
answered.

“
I can set up another meet
with Hal on Friday if you'd like,” Bill offered.

"Okay. That sounds good,” Jay said. His mind
was still turning cartwheels over the money. He couldn't believe
the magnitude of the offer he'd been given. But then, when he took
out a yellow pad, and started adding up the daily profits from
fixing the data sink and adding up the daily profits from the
additional trades on the PT109, he decided that the money wasn’t
really that good after all. That he could easily make ten times
what they were offering as a ‘percentage consultant’. He already
had two big successes on his resume. Maybe he’d take this offer,
get a third success on his resume and use the 50k signing bonus to
fund his own consulting firm. He could call it “code doctor”.
Isn’t that what the guy called me?

Back in his office Jay kept working through
all the options. Who would I take? Who'd want to go? What will
happen to Bill? All these questions floated back and forth. Jay
started to get lost in the complexity of it all. His fingers worked
their way to his temples and his eyes drifted shut in tired
confusion.

The ringing phone snapped him back.

"Hello?" Jay mumbled.

"Hello Jay,” Tonia Taggert replied.

"Tonia?" Jay asked. He was surprised. She'd
never called him at work.

"Yes of course silly. Does some other sexy
woman call you at work?" she asked.

"No,” Jay answered. He was suddenly at a loss
for words.

"How was your vacation?" Tonia asked. Jay
didn't respond immediately. He was trying to remember exactly what
he'd told Tonia of his vacation plans. It wasn't much.

"It was good,” he finally said. "I missed
you. Let's get together and talk.”

"I'd love to,” Tonia said. The tone in her
voice was warm and loving, first wrapping Jay's confused mind in an
embrace of comfort and joy, but then quickly making it more
confused.

"How about tonight? My place?" Jay ventured.
Tonia had never come over to his place during the week. He didn't
expect her to agree.

"Sure,” she answered without a moment's
hesitation. "I'll be there at seven. Have dinner ready. You know
what I like.”

Chapter

"Hi,” Tonia said. She pecked Jay on the cheek
as she brushed by him. She moved quickly into his apartment.
"Where's dinner?" she asked.

Jay thought that was hardly a warm enough
greeting for how long he'd been away but then he remembered the
scene in the car outside her house.

"It ought to be here any minute,” Jay
answered. He'd ordered pizza, their favorite. Jay followed her into
the living room and sat down. Tonia was eyeing the computer
equipment.

"So what can you do with all this stuff?" she
asked. Jay's eyes lit up. He'd never had a chance to show Tonia his
technical ability. He forgot all about the cold peck at the
door.

"I can do pretty much anything from here,”
Jay started. "I can access any computer on the Internet. I can send
and receive email. I could do my job from here if I wanted. I don't
even need to go into the office. I just go in so that they can see
me working, and to give me a reason to get out of the house on a
weekday.” Tonia nodded, following along.

"I keep in touch with a lot of people from
here,” Jay said.

"Like who? All your girlfriends?" Tonia asked
suspiciously.

"Well, mostly old students of mine, one
fellow, C. Daniel Kinchon sends me email about once a week, other
students of mine send a note once in a while. Usually when they
need a letter of recommendation for graduate school or for a job
they're interviewing for or something like that."

"Can you make trades from here?" she
asked.

"If I wanted to get arrested,” Jay replied.
He punched a few keys and a menu system offering information on
each of the major exchanges around the world came up on the
screen.

"I could program in trades on any exchange I
wanted to,” Jay said. "I'd probably never get caught but it is
probably against the law. I'm not a licensed trader or anything,
but the law really hasn’t caught up with the realities of today’s
computing environment,” Jay finished.

"Some of the guys at work have more elaborate
setups than this. One guy has his whole apartment wired together,
TV, stereo, computer, phone system everything. It's really
cool.”

Jay was describing his friend Ted Spencer's
apartment. Or, more correctly, Ted Spencer’s uptown ‘snake pit’.
The ‘snake pit’ that Ted had offered Jay the night he met Maria.
For a moment Jay felt guilty, but it quickly passed. He hadn’t been
together with Tonia when he’d had his weekend with Maria. And he’d
never seen her since.
No harm no foul
, he thought.

Jay was ready to keep talking about his
computer equipment as long as Tonia would listen. And then the door
buzzer rang. It was the pizza delivery man. Soon the hungry couple
was chowing down on their favorite, Ray's Famous Pizza. Jay inhaled
three or four pieces and then issued a huge belch that rumbled all
around the dining room. Jay and Tonia looked at each other for a
tense moment.

Jay snickered, Tonia chuckled and then they
burst into riotous laughter. They roared, holding their sides,
trying not to spit up their food. The tension of the last month was
washed away in their laughter. Jay felt the closeness of their
early days return. He forgot the pain of the discovery that Tonia
was married to Angus MacKenzie. He forgot his promise to Rick. He
forgot everything except the beautiful woman right there in front
of him.

They came together in hugs and kisses, each
running their hands over the other’s face as if to try to regain
the feelings they'd known. After the rush, they sat and chatted
quietly for several minutes.

"Tonia?"

"Yes?"

"I had an interesting offer at work today. I
was wondering if you'd mind hearing about it? Help me figure it
out, you know, bounce a few ideas off of each other?"

"Sure,” Tonia answered. She finished up her
last bite of pizza, put down her napkin and guided them over to the
couch. She sat Jay down at one end and then lay down with her head
on a cushion on his lap. "Okay shoot,” she said.

Jay was picking up mixed signals from Tonia.
First the cold peck at the door. Now this warmth and closeness,
familiarity. She seemed like she was caught between two points of
view. He started talking about the new job offer and his confusion
over her melted as he became absorbed in his current dilemma and
the refuge that her comforting eyes provided. Time after time, just
as his suspicion became aroused, it quickly diminished as he fell
further and further into her.

Tonia listened intently, looking up at him
through her long curly lashes.

"So what do you think?" Jay asked.

"I think I missed you more this past month
than I ever thought I would miss anyone,” Tonia answered. Jay
looked down at her, exasperated and amazed. He was caught entirely
off guard. His eyes widened and he searched for words.

"And, it sounds like a great chance for you,”
Tonia added, getting back on topic. "I've heard Angus talk about
that group. They make a considerable amount of money for MacKenzie
Lazarus and as result I think they are very highly compensated. I
think they have special security clauses and everything for their
people. It's all very hush hush as to exactly what they do and how
they do it, but Angus always mentions them.”

Jay recoiled at the mention of Angus' name.
Tonia saw him flinch back.

"Extra security?" Jay asked. Tonia's ears
picked up his question.

"Yeah. If I know Angus and if they've been
thinking about putting you in that group then they've probably
checked out your whole family and all your friends to see if you're
some kind of security risk or anything.”

"Do you think they'd go as far as following
me?" Jay asked.

Tonia sat up quickly.

"Do you think you're being followed?" she
asked. The alarm was clear in her voice.

"I don't know,” Jay lied. On one hand he
wanted to tell her everything, tell her about Rick, tell her about
the CIA, everything. On the other hand he was scared and confused.
Jay wondered how much she knew. His confusion was deepened by the
possibility that maybe MacKenzie Lazarus had been watching him
because of the new job possibility. He just couldn't figure it all
out. He remembered Rick's warning.
She'll love you to death
man
.

"Do you think they've seen us together?"
Tonia asked. Something other than pure concern was registering in
her voice. Jay couldn't identify it. But it didn't sound genuine to
him. It felt forced. Like there was something just beneath the
surface, like a momentarily unconvincing actor in an otherwise
excellent production.

"I doubt it,” Jay answered.

"I've got to go,” Tonia announced. She got up
quickly, brushed a kiss onto his cheek and hurried out of the
apartment. Jay sat down and ate the last piece of pizza alone.

"Damn,” he muttered.
It seemed kinda like
a performance to me
. And then he cursed himself, and Rick, and
Stan Krantz, and New York, and everything and everyone that had him
twisting so cruelly.

In the next room the two men passed a knowing
glance between them. They realized their work was almost done.

Jay changed into some old sweat clothes,
threw fifty bucks in his pocket and headed out the door with his
high tops undone. He was headed for the World Trade Center Golf
Club, an indoor golfing club where you hit your ball off Astroturf
and into a projection screen. Radars and cameras track the flight
and spin of your ball and project a track on the screen that has
hundreds of stored pictures of famous golf courses like St.
Andrews, Pinehurst, and Pebble Beach.

Jay's favorite was Pebble Beach. Jay sweated
over two buckets of balls at the club, releasing his anxieties into
each full swing with the driver that he had stored in his locker
there. By the time he was done he was sweaty and sore. He headed
back to his locker, changed out of his golf clothes and headed into
the club's showers and washed away his aches.

"Did you have a good one Mr. C?" the Latino
boy at the front desk asked.

"Not bad,” Jay answered. Jay handed over his
wet towels and clothes for laundering.

"No starch right?” the boy asked.

"Right,” Jay answered. He handed the boy a
five for remembering, genuinely happy that someone remembered him,
even if it was for tips. He liked being ‘a regular’. Liked having
clothes and clubs and snacks stored in his locker. Liked having
somewhere that at least someone knew his name. And he’d started
‘accidentally’ leaving money in his pockets so he could ‘find’ it
and have a surprise.

“
You wanna go 18 on Golden
Tee?” the boy asked.

“
Right on brother. Fire it
up.”

For half an hour, as Jay and the late night
employee took turns playing video game golf, both Jay and the
employee were part of something, and were not alone. They were a
team, a little electronic community joined by bits and bytes and
electrons shuttling back and forth.

When they were done, Jay shuffled back home
in the replacement sweats from his locker.

Chapter

"Hi mom,” Jay Calloway said into the
phone.

"Hi baby,” Mrs. Calloway answered from Ohio.
"What's up?"

"Oh I just wanted to talk,” Jay equivocated.
He did want to talk, but not to his mother. Jay was hoping his
silent father would have answered. Jay hoped that his dad would
sniff out Jay's problems and come up with a great solution that Jay
could then do the exact opposite of. It was a problem solving
technique that Jay had used successfully before.

"Is dad home?"

"No.”

"Where is he?"

"He's at the hunting lodge. You know deer
season just opened yesterday. He's hoping to get a twelve point
buck this year but you know your father, he'll most likely end up
with a twelve pack of bud instead.” Jay's mother laughed
hysterically at her own joke, like she'd had a 6 pack herself.

"Mom you're really different when Dad's away,
did you know that?" Jay asked.

"Yes of course baby,” she answered in her
regular mother voice. "So what's on your mind son? Girls, money, or
girls?"