T. Bunn - Drummer in the Dark

Alex dropped back into the saddle. Said to Eric, “Tell the guy we’re in for more.”

“How much?”

“Go for a quarter. See what he says.”

Eric tried vainly to hold to his calm. But the bug eyes gave him away. A quarter billion dollars was twice his limit and the biggest trade he had ever made. His voice was slightly strangled as he uncovered his mike and said, “Back to you with second query.”

“Go.”

“What’s your posit for more dollar-euro?”

“Give me a size.”

A nervous glance at Alex, who nodded sharply. Go. “Two hundred and fifty either way.”

A fractional pause, then, “This is an authorized trade?”

An authorized trade meant the query was backed by an actual right to deal. “Affirmative.”

“Hold one.”

The senior trader raised his hand like a conductor ready to lead the band into frantic song. The broker came back, “Two hundred fifty at one-fifty-sixty.”

Either-way trade offers included both buy and sell prices. One-fifty-sixty meant the unnamed source was willing to either sell euros at eighty-one and fifty hundredths U.S. cents, or buy at ten hundredths higher. This buy-sell difference also included the broker’s minuscule cut.

The senior trader’s upraised hand pumped violently. Nineteen traders went into hyperdrive. The first response came from across the aisle at, “Buy fifty at one-seventy!”

Another, “Seventy at one-sixty-nine!”

The senior trader’s arm pumped harder. Over the speaker the broker demanded, “Are we trading or am I walking?”

Eric uncovered his mike but could not keep the tremble from either his voice or his hand. “Hold one.”

“I don’t hold for nobody, boyo. Especially not some schmuck trading out of his league. You drop this, you don’t ever call me again.”

A voice from across the room shouted, “Sixty-five at one-sixty-one!”

The senior trader snapped, “Buy it all.”

Eric’s voice raised an octave as he shouted, “Buy two-fifty at one-fifty!”

“Done and good-bye.” The broker cut the connection.

The senior trader shouted, “We’re still holding twenty-five. Find me anything over one-fifty!”

“Twenty-five at one-fifty-six!”

Eric stabbed his screen and managed, “Euro-dollar’s going south. The market’s gapping down!”

The senior trader walked over to clap Eric on the shoulder. “Add fifty to your limit and a half-bill to your bonus.” He said more loudly, “Way to go, team!” Then he headed toward Colin.

Colin said in greeting, “Eric buzzed me.”

“I asked him to.” Up close Alex had the stretched-mask face of a trauma victim and a voice to match. He pointed to the balcony. “You see the new guys?”

“I do now.” The glassed-in parapet was alive with activity. Upstairs traders went through a normal trading day. Only they were cut off by a glass wall and gave scant indication they were aware of anything down below.

“Can you tap in and find out what’s going on?”

“No. They’re using a secure line.”

“Independent of the group’s computers?”

“Independent of everything.”

The senior trader looked very worried. “This is a bad idea, putting them up there. Traders deal in rumors, and I’m stamping out a dozen at a time. Half my guys have feelers out for new jobs. They can’t work in a place where they’re getting secondhand reports.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I don’t know anything. Hayek’s just getting back from Miami, the Unabomber’s not available, and I’ve got twenty new faces standing on top of my head. And I don’t know why.” The senior trader’s attention was caught by arm-waving from one of his cadre. Alex was a man who lived in twenty-second bursts. Colin’s time was up. “You hear anything, you let me know, right?”

“Absolutely.” Colin watched him move away, grateful for this public connection. Alex had not met him today to ask about the new scene overhead. He wanted to show all the members of his eighty-by-eighty world that Colin was one of the good guys. His place was swiftly taken by Eric. Colin told him, “You did good out there.”

“Today, maybe.” Eric’s high was gone, the fizz now flat. “You know what they say about the higher you climb.”

“Yeah,” Colin replied. “The more money you put in your pocket.”

“If that’s so, how come I’m the one always in debt?” Eric headed back to his desk.

Colin searched the upstairs glass cage for the deadhead in Armani, but all the faces were fleeting blurs backlit by a hundred monitors. Colin turned from all the unanswered questions and headed back to his safe little hole.

But he was halted at his cubicle’s entrance by the sight of a well-dressed foe perched on the edge of his seat. The usurper’s ivory linen jacket was pulled up his arms to reveal a gold Rolex. Super-dude shades sat on top of his spiky waxed hair. Colin could not believe his eyes. Nobody entered someone else’s cubicle without permission. It was one of the backroom’s unbreakable codes. “What are you doing? ”

The guy knew he had gone too far. He tried for cool, but the jerky way he snapped about, then flashed back to kill the screens convicted him. “Easy there. Just hanging around, playing the odd game.”

But Colin was no longer listening. He seldom felt rage, even less often acted upon it. But to find this man seated in his space working on his system pushed him way beyond redline.

“Chill, dude. It’s all part of a day’s play. I mean, it’s not like you’ve got anything worth hiding, am I right?”

A weapon. Colin found nothing to hand except the ficus tree guarding the cubicle opposite his. He raced over and hefted it, bucket and all.

“Hey!” A voice from inside cried, “You can’t-”

But Colin was already hurtling back across the narrow aisle, gathering what speed he could. He hefted the tree, bucket first, aiming straight for the deadhead’s slack-jawed face.

It was a lousy shot. The guy ducked in time, and Colin managed only to graze the top of his head. But it was enough to dislodge the bug-eyed shades and dump a ton of dirt down the back of the guy’s shirt.

“ Help! ” The guy was down on all fours now, or at least threes, with one hand wrapped over his head. “This idiot’s gone berserk!”

“You miserable cretin!” Colin flipped the empty bucket to one side, gripped the tree by its branches, and whipped the roots down on the guy’s back and shoulders. Leaving filthy stripes across the guy’s jacket. Feeling the shades crunch under his foot. “You ever come in here again I’ll kill you.”

The worst blow came not from Colin at all, but rather from the guy catapulting out of the cubicle still blinded by the hand covering his head, and ramming straight into the opposite wall. He went down hard, which gave Colin time to get in another two swipes across his back and one solid kick to the ribs. The guy shrilled a noise too high for human vocal cords and fled, leaving a trail of dirt and leaves in his wake.

Chest heaving, Colin stood staring down the corridor. Then he realized he was not alone. He turned to find the aisle behind him jammed with round-eyed spectators.

Somebody said, “Plaudits, dude.”

“Yeah, way to rage, Colin.”

“Was that one of the new guys?”

Colin nodded, then said to his colleague from across the aisle. “Sorry about the tree. I’ll buy you another.”

The young woman was an Indian who rarely said more than hello. Surree somebody. “My mother gave me that thing. I’ve always hated it.”

The neighbor to his left asked, “Need a hand cleaning up?”

“Sure, thanks.” But when he reentered his cubicle, he ignored the dirt and leaves and burrowed under his desk. Searching. “Anybody see him come in, or how long he was here alone?”