by Reed Arvin
Nightmare, Robinson, and I followed Nicole out of the elevator toward her office. There were a lot of suits walking around, even more than usual, according to Nicole. Some of the higher-ups had gathered, ready to watch the fireworks when Horizn opened. One office we passed had a bucket with a bottle of Cristal Roederer cooling expensively in ice. Four or five people were in the room, chatting with the high, anxious voices of children on Christmas morning.
Nightmare walked in a haze, probably imagining the damage he could do if he ever got access to their computer system. We filed into Nicole’s office, a comfortable space containing a modern-looking desk, a coffee table, a leather couch and some fabric-covered wing chairs. A LeRoy Neiman painting hung on one wall. I pointed and gave her a questioning look.
“I loathe it, but it makes my male clients feel better,” she said. “Before I ask them to give me all their money.” She motioned for us to take a seat and pulled up a chair herself. “Now, why don’t you tell me what this is all about? This is a busy morning.”
I set the briefcase on her coffee table and flipped it open. “These,” I said, “are certificates of Grayton Technical Laboratories stock. Together with our cashier’s check, their current value is eight hundred forty-three thousand, eight hundred dollars. I trust they’re self-explanatory.”
Nicole stared at the briefcase. “I see.” She pulled out a calculator and punched some buttons. “It’s not enough, Jack. Margin accounts can’t exceed fifty percent.”
“We intend to sell short. It’s seventy-five percent for that, right?”
“Intend to sell what short?”
“It’s seventy-five percent, right?”
She watched me a moment, then said, “Yes, Jack. It’s seventy-five percent for selling short. Technically.”
“So that’s two million, five hundred thirty-one thousand, four hundred dollars.” I pulled out a piece of paper and put it on her desk. “This is my life insurance,” I said. “It has a cash value of twenty-one thousand dollars. I’ve made Shearson Lehman the assignee. You can cash it at your leisure.”
A longer pause, as Nicole—who, although an absolute minx socially, handled her business affairs like a nun—considered. “It’s hardly conventional.”
“It is legal, though. That’s the point.”
“You gentlemen realize that if this stock goes down you are going to suffer huge losses.”
“We do.”
“Which means you are going to get called.”
“Right.”
“There’s no grace on a margin this big, Jack. You’ll have to cover at the close of every business day. No exceptions. You could lose everything before you know what hit you.” I nodded silently. “You do understand the commissions on margin are higher.”
“I do.”
Nicole watched me levelly a moment, then said, “If you gentlemen will wait here a minute, I’ll have some paperwork for you to sign.”
I had set my grief aside for a few disciplined hours, because I was burning inside. It wasn’t a righteous flame, exactly. I had made too many of my own mistakes for that. But it was white hot, and it had a well-earned target. After we signed, I stood pacing as Nicole started her trading software on her desktop computer. The side wall facing the trading area was glass, and Nightmare and Robinson pressed up against it, noses against the window. The traders were already at their places, chatting between themselves, beginning the morning’s caffeine assault on generic fatigue.
In the four or five minutes between that moment and the opening of trading, we were like a little band of brothers, three unlikely compadres thrown together by circumstance. And we were about to go to war. You could feel the energy between us, part hope, part anxious fear. I walked over to the glass, and we stood there, mesmerized, thinking about what was about to happen. At ten o’clock, Nicole’s voice pulled me back into reality. “Boom,” she said, smiling. “Off to the races. Now tell me what we’re doing.”
“Put Horizn on the screen,” I said.
“Horizn.” She looked paler, if that was possible, than usual.
I walked back over to Nicole, looking over her shoulder. My entire body went tense as I watched the numbers. Horizn’s stock symbol, HZN, flickered an instant at the starting price of 31, but that lasted seconds. Quickly, it rose to 32.50, then 33.17. Nicole looked at me. “Tell me what you’re doing. It’s going to get expensive.”
“Not yet,” I said levelly. Thirty minutes later, Horizn was at 38.12. Nicole was growing anxious.
“Jack, this is crazy.”
I shook my head. By eleven-fifteen, Horizn had exploded to forty-six dollars, well on its way toward its anticipated one-year level. Buying was frantic, as traders made bids only to see the price vanish before the order was filled. I glanced at Robinson, who was giving me a nervous look. “When it hits fifty,” I said.
Nightmare was trembling. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said.
“You can get off the train anytime you like,” I said. “It’s your decision.”
Nightmare turned back to stare at the trading floor, but shut his mouth. At about eleven-thirty, the buying pace slowed. Over the next ten minutes, the price glimmered in the mid-49s, flirting with but not hitting the magic number.
“It’s running out of steam,” Nicole said. “There’s some day traders taking quick money.”
I looked at my watch; it was twenty minutes until twelve. “Buy five thousand shares,” I said. “At market.”
Nicole looked stricken. “C’mon, Jack. It’s flagging. Go a quarter under and wait.”
“Market,” I said, eyes fixed on the screen.
“It’s your money,” Nicole said, typing on the screen.
I watched my order flash a moment, then get devoured. That reenergized things for a while, but the magic 50 hadn’t been broken. “Buy another five thousand,” Robinson said. Nicole looked up.
I nodded at Robinson, who was wide-eyed, but otherwise calm. “He’s right,” I said. “Another five thousand, at market.” Nicole typed, and within seconds, we had our buyer. A few seconds after that, the price started back up—nothing dramatic, but with renewed energy. A few minutes later, HZN crossed the magic fifty-dollar mark. With that psychological barrier passed, another round of buying took over, pushing the stock even higher.
“Blessed Virgin,” Robinson said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Blessed Virgin, come to us in our hour of need.” I looked at my watch one last time, turned to Nicole and said, “Turn on the TV. You can leave the sound off. Tune to Channel Five.”
Nicole looked at me, her expression blank. By now, she was in a dream state, just along for the ride. She picked up a remote control and turned on a TV across the room. It was a soap commercial. I looked back at the trading numbers. Horizn had just crossed 53.
The commercial ended, and a “Breaking News” banner popped up at the bottom of the screen. The picture changed to the PR room the Atlanta Police Department used for press briefings. Billy Little was standing behind a group of microphones. The room was silent as we watched Billy Little make a short announcement. Nightmare watched from across Nicole’s office, his face white. Robinson, on the other hand, went calm. His eyes were fixed on Little, waiting for the detective to say the words that would make his life make sense again. “I’m going to sell some Horizn shares short, Nicole,” I said. “I want you to get it on your screen, ready to send.”
“Short? How many shares?”
“Fifty thousand,” I said quietly. “And I need your finger on the trigger.”
Nicole stared at the TV screen, suddenly grasping that something terrible was about to happen to Horizn stock. “My God, Jack. Oh, my God.”
“Exactly, sweetheart. Just do it, please.”
“Fifty thousand? Oh, God, Jack. What is this?”
“Get it on your screen, but don’t send it until I tell you.” Billy kept talking, his mouth moving silently in the corner of Nicole’s monitor. I glanced over the trading numbers; th
e buying was still brisk. The next fifteen seconds were agonizing. They passed in slow motion, the way seasons change. I thought I was going to explode if Billy Little didn’t shut up.
Finally, just when I thought we were screwed, Billy raised his eyes from his prepared statement. Hands went up from the reporters, and Billy pointed at one. I looked at Nicole. “Now, please. All of it, every share, and this second.”
Nicole blanched. “Jack, listen to me ...”
“Now.”
Nicole pressed enter on her keyboard. Nightmare put his head in his hands, trying to steady himself. Robinson walked over beside me, and together, we watched our bid sit in the electronic ether, waiting for a buyer. Fifty thousand shares, sold short. The size of the bid stopped the day traders; they sniffed trouble. The bid sat flashing, lost in a financial demilitarized zone. For a terrible moment, there was peace, the combat ceased. I glanced at the TV screen; Billy was handling a flurry of questions. Before he could finish one, a dozen hands were up in the air. Come on, baby. It’s now or never. Suddenly, our bid was greedily snapped up in one bite by an institutional firm. The flashing little square on Nicole’s screen turned red, and it was gone. Robinson gasped, then exhaled.
“Is it okay?” Nightmare asked. His voice was quaking, and he was washed out, like a junkie.
I turned and smiled. “Old economy, Michael,” I said. “You really ought to try it sometime.” I looked at Nicole. “You can turn up the volume now.”
Nicole pressed a button on her computer, and we heard Billy Little’s voice. “That’s right,” he said. “There’s no evidence that any other officers at Horizn were involved. We’re only charging the two principals, Charles Ralston and Derek Stephens.” Nicole gasped, and I put a hand on her shoulder.
“Is that first-degree murder, Detective Little?” a voice from the press room asked.
Billy Little nodded. “That’s right. Eight counts, murder in the first degree.”
I squeezed Nicole’s shoulder. “You can turn it off now. And you might want to lock your door.”
Nicole looked up at me. “God, Jack, you knew. It’s insider trading.”
I shook my head. “You sold after the announcement was made. The information was public at the time of the trade. The trading records will back that up. By definition, the trade was not insider.”
Nicole looked down at her monitor; there was already some light selling. It would be a matter of minutes before the stock went into free fall. “But, Jack, a lot of people are going to get hurt. You could have saved them millions.”
I took her hand, pulling her up out of her chair. I kissed her cheek. “No matter where I went, a lot of people were going to get hurt. But this way, I could protect you.”
Nicole leaned back heavily in her chair and stared at her monitor, watching Horizn stock already crashing downward through the 30s. “You bastard,” she said, quietly. “You are such a bastard.”
I smiled. “You knew nothing, you broke no law, and you made your new clients very rich. All in all, quite a good morning.”
Horizn responded within hours, flooding the airwaves with denials. But the damage was done. By the time the dust settled, Horizn was trading at four dollars and twelve cents. Thomas Robinson made $2,604,000, all in about two hours. Nightmare—who, no doubt, would soon begin to refer to himself as Mr. Michael Harrod, made $46,000.
I made nothing. I had given Thomas Robinson back his self-respect and a measure of revenge. I had already regained the former, and I had no further need for the latter. Robinson was fighting a bitter battle, and I was glad to help him find his life again. But I would never make a dollar off anything that had ever touched Michele Sonnier. Others had done so, from her managers to concert halls around the world. Even her husband, after a fashion; he had traded on her gift to gain entree to a part of society otherwise closed to him. But I would rather die. She was my dark angel: conflicted, tortured, and still brilliant as the sun.
Only one other person benefitted from those hours of trading at Shearson Lehman. The money that Nicole had spotted me against my life insurance netted Briah Fields $72,280. Of all the victims in the story, in the end, she was the only one who truly deserved no pain.
CHAPTER THIRTY
ROBINSON, NIGHTMARE, AND I stood outside the Shearson Lehman offices in a bright, warm sunlight. The traffic flowed briskly by as people lived their good lives, their bad lives, their in-between lives. Their loves and hates and ambitions traveled along with them, filling Atlanta with the noisy, multicolored crush of a very imperfect humanity. I turned to Robinson. “You’re a good man,” I said. “A good doctor.”
Robinson smiled. “Maybe they’ll let me do some research again. That would be nice.”
“Things are going to get hairy for a while,” I said. “Reporters, cops, probably the SEC. But don’t worry. You have a good lawyer.”
Robinson nodded. “One hell of a lawyer.”
Michael—still reeling with the idea that he wasn’t broke—said, “Go to bed, will you? You both look like hell.”
Robinson turned toward him. “If you still want that job, let me know. You’ve got a good mind, and I have a lot of software-intensive ideas.”
“What about it, Michael?” I asked. “You’d have to pay taxes. On the other hand, you’d probably be a lot less likely to end up in jail.”
Nightmare flushed and stood up a little straighter. “Yeah. That would be good.”
“Glad to hear it,” I said. “Now you and the doctor get some rest.”
There was much to grieve, and I needed quiet to do it. I called Blu and gave her the rest of the week off, with pay. She was concerned, but I wouldn’t let her come over. I needed the time alone. I didn’t leave my apartment for a couple of days. There was sleep, but it was troubled, and full of dreams. I awakened each time ravenous, eating whatever I could find, ordering in when I ran out of food.
I had loved Michele, but in a whirlwind. She had blown into my life, disturbing everything in my world. It would take time before I could regain any stillness within myself, any peace after her storm. While I looked for quiet, the city heaved under the news that one of its heroes had turned against it, trading the lives of eight people for the promise of money. Soon there would be grueling depositions, and the certainty that every shred of Michele’s past would be exposed, no matter how personal.
When I finally ventured out, I stood outside my apartment on the street, coming to terms with my city once again. The neighborhood was quiet in the midafternoon, but I knew that it was an illusion. To the east crowded the urban life of Atlanta’s lower middle class, pressed together like worker bees in a hive; to the north were the thriving megabusinesses of the southeastern United States. In every direction, the ceaselessly expanding suburbs stretched, filling with the people who poured in from every part of the world.
One memory remained to be released, a lingering wound to dress before that chaos descended. Three days after Michele’s death, I went alone to my familiar stop at the flower shop on Woodward Avenue. I purchased my usual red tulips, and drove toward the silent retreat where two years earlier I had left a piece of my soul. I rolled through the iron gates of Oakland Cemetery, opening my windows to let the scented, summer air inside the car. I parked and sat in the tranquil quiet, leaning back in my seat, breathing deeply. The grass shimmered green in the breeze, the leaves making a serene, intermittent rustle around me. I thought of Thomas Robinson, and how he had risked everything—even his own life—to redeem his work. Courage and desperation are close cousins, and he had drawn on both to break open what would otherwise have been one more story of the evil prospering. And I thought of Michael, and how he had found himself at last. Once out of his dark cave, he was capable of anything. But my thoughts only stayed with those two a moment. A few yards away, a woman rested. I counted the six gravestones, and saw her. La flor inocente, her gravestone said, but I knew it was only a romantic vision. She was not innocent. She had chosen to love a violent man, and in so doi
ng, she took on his evil. But I have spent my days and nights with the refuse of my city, and I sit in no judgment seat. I saw her beauty, fell captive to it, and set into motion events that haunt me still. Nothing truly evil could possibly have lived behind her eyes. She was only conflicted, like everyone, struggling to find love and security in a changing world.
I opened the car door, walked quietly across the familiar names in stone, and found her. Bella como la luna y las estrellas, her gravestone said, and of that, there could be no doubt. Violeta Ramirez, lovely as the moon and stars. I knelt down before her grave, laid my flowers across her plot of earth, and said goodbye. If her ghost revisits me, it is only in the place of memory, no longer in my conscious, waking hours. The time had come to let her go, and I felt her fall away, freed from the concerns that made her life so hard.
I rose, feeling the warm air on my face, breathing in the urban compounds of life—automobiles, plants of every kind, people, industry, love, and sin—that permeate my city. Missing at my side was Michele, brilliant artist, brilliant lover, failed, tragic mother. What can I make of her, now that her light has gone out, or at least left this world? My heart opened up to her, but our love was cut short. For that, I feel both cheated and saved. There are a thousand nights I never got to feel her hand in mine, and a hundred more I never got to hear her sing. Love is part possession and part happenstance. Would I have loved Michele if I had met her in McDaniel Glen? Would my eyes have been open to see her spectacular gift? Or would I have simply walked past her, summing her up as one more victim of the projects? I will never know.
None of this has the power to unmake me, not anymore. Life doesn’t yield nicely to logic, in the end. Or perhaps it yields only to this logic: L’amore non prevale sempre. Grayton was saved, and with it, Robinson and Nightmare. But Michele was gone, separated from her daughter by eternity. Love does not always prevail, not always, not in this life. Shakespeare knew that, and every generation has to learn it again. Doug knew it. Deep in his damaged soul, he must have sensed he was doomed by love the second he spoke those words to Michele. They were his greeting, and they were his goodbye. And I know it now, never to be forgotten. We breathe, we risk. We make our peace. We strip it down, and we let it go.