Read Online Black Fridays by Michael Sears - Free Book Online Page A

monologues on the subject, was to evoke jealousy in the heart of a fellow math major who had spurned her advances. And though I was far from celibate in the intervening years, before I was swept up into a state of slavering, perpetual concupiscence by Angie, I had never been a player.
    The active pursuit of not just one woman at a time but many, with all the schedule and emotional juggling required, seemed more stressful than the job. I had the necessary calculating, predatory reserve, but I channeled it into my work, rather than sexual conquest. There was no jealousy on my part toward those who chose to live that way, no moral outrage, no need to defend the honor of womankind; it was more a sense of disbelief that anyone would devote themselves so single-mindedly to the pursuit of something so ephemeral.
    Angie opened my eyes.
    I looked at the young trading assistant. He seemed more than a bit in awe of Sanders and the games he played. I didn’t hold it against him, but I wanted information.
    “What kind of women? Co-workers? Clients?”
    He shook his head. “Well, not co-workers anyway. But he would get maybe a dozen calls a day from girls. Girls he met at clubs or out at the beach or wherever.” He must have interpreted my interest as shared esteem because he continued. “There were these two Hilton-wannabes at Morgan who kept calling him and he managed to talk them into a three-way one weekend out at his share in Quogue.”
    This was getting me no closer to understanding Sanders’ business or what he may have been up to, and the underlying air of hero worship was pissing me off.
    “Save it. Let’s get back to his trading. What’s in the boxes?”
    “Trade reports. P&L. Notebooks.”
    I nodded. “By tomorrow morning, I need to understand it all,
capisce
? I’m not a bond guy, so you are going to have to interpret for me.”
    “No problem,” he said.
    I wasn’t sure. The SEC would bring a dozen accountants to wade through that much paper, and a time budget of “as long as it takes.” I had an inexperienced trading assistant and two weeks.
    “I want a list of all the clients Sanders did business with—and the salesmen assigned to them. Then go through every trade and flag anything that looks unusual—for any reason. Really big trades, different products, new accounts, you follow?”
    “No problem. I can get most of it off the computer. I can match it up with the paper trail.” He looked up at the blasting AC vent and tried shifting his chair a bit. It didn’t help.
    “Great. I can use a computer, but there’s a lot I don’t know or don’t have time for. I’m going to be leaning on you a lot. Next, see if you can find any trades that look off the market. Let me see those as well.”
    “That’s going to be trickier. I know what you want—trades where the price doesn’t really line up with where the market was trading at the time, right? I just don’t think I really know his product well enough.”
    “I thought you knew about bonds.” Did I need somebody else?
    “I do. But matching up prices that way could be a problem.”
    “Then leave it for now. We’ll deal with it down the road.” The walls were playing tricks on me, inching in on my peripheral vision, but moving back when I looked right at them. It was time for me to go. I was beginning to shiver—from the cold or my claustrophobia or both. I stood up. “I’ve got someone waiting for me. You and I will get started in the morning around eight-thirty. By tomorrow night I need to know everything you know—and more.”
    “No problem.”
    “And see what you can do about that goddamn vent.”
    “Will do, Mr. Stafford.”
    That made me realize. “By the way, what’s your name?”
    “Frederick Krebs. But everybody pretty much calls me Spud.”
    “As in potato?”
    “It was a fraternity thing . . .” he began.
    “Please,” I stopped him. “Say no more.”

I WENT HOME to meet my son. It was his first day of school and the