by Stephen Frey
Unfortunately, Cole’s performance had taken a turn for the worse. Last year he hadn’t been able to buy a hit and had lost twenty million dollars of the firm’s money. Now he was approaching the end of an even worse year. He was on the bubble and everyone on the trading floor knew it.
“How you doing there, sport?” Lewis Gebauer asked smugly, ogling a young woman wearing a short, tight skirt, who was walking past him.
“Fine, Lewis,” Cole replied curtly, glancing quickly at Gebauer, then back at the computer screens.
Gebauer was grossly overweight, almost bald, sported pallid skin after years of not seeing the sun, and wore ties and shirts permanently stained by the fat-laden foods he consumed in huge quantities. Despite his offensive physical appearance, he had deluded himself into believing that he was quite a ladies man and kept a close eye on any woman who visited the trading floor. He was insufferably obnoxious and universally disliked, but he traded government bonds with startling success. In the last five years he had earned over three hundred million dollars for Gilchrist & Company, buying and selling the U.S. Government’s thirty-year debt obligation. As thanks for his performance and to make certain he wasn’t lured away by a competitor, Gilchrist senior executives had bonused him sixty of that three hundred million. Gebauer lived in an opulent stone mansion in Connecticut with his third wife, a twenty-six-year-old platinum blonde he’d met at a bar in Manhattan and married two days later, and to whom he wasn’t faithful. She hardly cared about his infidelity with a long line of paid escorts because she had only married him for the ultimate payday, which would come either through his death or their divorce.
Cole had been forced to sit next to Gebauer since his first day on the trading floor and had grown to detest the man just as everyone else did.
“I’m doing fine, Lewis,” Cole repeated.
“Really?” Gebauer asked sarcastically, gumming an unlit Cuban cigar from a box he had smuggled into New York through Kennedy Airport after a trip to Paris. “That’s not what I hear.” Gebauer enjoyed kicking people when they were down. It was entertainment for him.
Cole recognized that Gebauer was bored with the afternoon lull and was simply trying to start an argument in order to make the time pass more quickly. In these situations it was sometimes effective to launch a preemptive strike. “I’m surprised you can hear anything with all of that protein sprouting from your ears.”
Two traders on the other side of the desk snickered loudly at the ear-hair crack. Cole was fast with a comeback, and not someone you dueled carelessly.
“I hear you’ve got a big fat mortgage on that Upper West Side penthouse condominium you bought two years ago,” Gebauer sneered, adding specifics to his verbal attack. He had no intention of backing down. “And I hear you haven’t gotten a bonus since George Bush was president,” he exaggerated. “Thanks to that, you’re way behind on your Mount Everest-size mortgage.” Gebauer’s pulse quickened as he recounted the information recently conveyed to him by the man with an ugly scar cutting through his left cheek.
Cole tried hard to focus on the computer screens and ignore Gebauer, but the numbers in front of him blurred as the question raced through his mind: How the hell was Gebauer aware of the bonus and the mortgage? Only Gilchrist’s top executives knew he’d been shut out of the bonus pool last year, and he hadn’t told anyone on the trading floor he even owned an apartment, much less a penthouse with a huge mortgage. He stole another glance at Gebauer. Several times over the last few days, papers on Cole’s desk seemed to have been rearranged when he returned to the trading floor after procuring one of the six Diet Cokes he drank daily. Surely, he realized, Gebauer must be responsible.
“Young blood with the sabre tongue isn’t talking much now,” Gebauer crowed.
One of the traders on the other side of the desk stood up and stretched casually, using the opportunity to glance over the computer monitors and phone banks at Cole to judge for himself whether Gebauer’s mortgage missile was on target—trading floors thrive on gossip—but there was no way to tell for certain. Cole’s face remained impassive.
“And I hear your honey has the same problem I do, lover boy,” Gebauer continued, full of confidence now that Cole had gone silent. “I hear she likes girls, if you get my drift,” he said, smiling lewdly.
Cole’s right hand slowly contracted into a fist. He could send Gebauer into next week with one right to the jaw and probably earn a standing ovation from everyone on the floor. He swiveled in his seat, as if to take a swing, just as one of his ten phone lines began blinking. He stared at the blinking light for a few moments before finally unclenching his hand.
Forget Gebauer, he told himself. The guy isn’t worth it. Besides, he’ll be dead of a heart attack soon. Cole punched the blinking line instead of Gebauer and grabbed the receiver. If there really was a God, that heart attack would take place right here on the trading floor so he could watch it. “Hello.”
“Who is this?” The voice was cold.
“Cole Egan,” he answered, forcing himself to be cordial. Gilchrist senior executives sometimes buzzed the trading floor just to see how quickly calls were being answered.
“What is your middle name, Mr. Egan?”
Cole was instantly annoyed by what he considered a ludicrous question. “Who the hell wants to know?” In the background he heard someone shout a warning about an imminent announcement by the Federal Reserve and pressed his palm over the ear not covered by the phone to drown out the growing din. “Who are you?”
“Tell me your middle name,” the voice insisted.
The noise level on the floor rose to a dull roar as a senior Fed official appeared on the many television monitors positioned around the Gilchrist trading floor. Cole hesitated, torn between the chaos erupting around him and something in the voice at the other end of the line.
“Your middle name,” the voice demanded.
“Sage,” Cole snapped, impatient to cut off the caller. Like any good trader he sensed a tempest bearing down on his portfolio and knew he should be directing his full attention to that right now, not the call. “What’s it to you?”
“I’m an acquaintance of your father.”
The Fed announcement burst like water through a cracking dam and bedlam exploded as traders shouted orders simultaneously over multiple phones, desperately attempting to take advantage of, or protect themselves from, the interest rate increase suddenly imposed by the central bank. However, Cole heard none of it. He had blocked out everything except the icy voice that had mentioned his father.
“I have bad news for you,” the voice continued. There was no sympathy in the tone. “Your father is dead.”
The news hit Cole like an avalanche, but he gave no indication of that to the individual at the other end of the line. “I can’t say I’m overcome with grief,” he offered defiantly. He had only seen his father a few times in his life, having been raised by an aunt and uncle after his mother’s death. He had believed all his life that his father never wanted him.
“I don’t care whether you grieve or not,” the voice retorted indifferently. “My job was to deliver this message for the agency, and to deliver an envelope to you which is now out front at the reception desk. Good-bye, Mr. Egan.” The line went dead.
“Hey, Egan!” one of the traders on the other side of the desk yelled. “There’s a guy from Merrill Lynch on line two. He says he wants to buy some of your five-year paper. He says you’re probably ready to sell it at this point.”
“And Nicki’s on line three!” another trader hollered.
For a moment Cole didn’t respond. He shouldn’t leave the desk right now, not seconds after the Fed announcement, but he had to. The envelope out front probably involved his father, and anything having to do with his father took precedence over anything else.
“Tell both of them I’ll call back!” Cole yelled over his shoulder, as he dropped the receiver on the desk and sprinted through the chaos toward the reception area outside the wooden d
oors at the far end of the room. He dodged a young assistant obediently bringing coffee to the junk bond traders, raced the last few yards to the doors, burst into the reception area, and stopped short. There were always visitors milling about here and he scanned every face carefully, trying to memorize distinctive features of each one. Finally, he moved toward the reception desk and the noise from the trading floor subsided as the door swung shut behind him.
“Hi, Cole.” Anita Petrocelli smiled cheerfully at him from behind the large desk. She was a young Queens native whose infatuation with Cole was almost as obvious as the dark mole above her upper lip. He was tall and broad with rugged features—a strong nose, strong chin, and sculpted cheeks. His wavy, jet-black hair contrasted starkly with his neatly pressed, white cotton dress shirt and matched his onyx cufflinks perfectly. His hair was long on top, but short on the sides and in the back—not the more conservative style worn by most of the men who prowled Gilchrist’s trading floor. His dimpled smile was alluring and mysterious, as if he was hiding something. The three tiny holes in his left earlobe provided a tiny window into a rebellious adolescence. And his large, steel-gray eyes, surrounded by long thick lashes, were the sexiest she had ever seen.
He had taken her to lunch several times, just to be friendly, and through their conversations in the more relaxed atmosphere away from work, she had come to know of his total abhorrence of conformity simply for conformity’s sake, and his love of being different simply to be different. She had also come to know of his considerable appetite for risk. He was constantly wagering on something during lunch—how many minutes until the entree would be served, which patrons would be the first to leave, or who in the entire restaurant would next use their napkin. The stakes didn’t really matter, and he never took her money if he won the bet. He simply loved to take a risk. She found this devil-may-care attitude electrifying, as did other women at Gilchrist, she knew. He was quite a package.
For Anita, the best thing about Cole was that he had made it to his twenty-ninth birthday single. There were rumors that he had a steady girlfriend, but no proof, and without a gold band on his left hand’s ring finger, she considered him her primary target. Maybe even if he wore a ring, she admitted, slightly ashamed of herself. She had made no secret of her attraction to him; however, he had always told her she was too good for him. She understood this response as his way of letting her down gently, but she continued to flirt with him anyway because she believed that if you kept hammering long enough, the wall might finally crumble.
“What can I do for you, Cole?” she asked in her sexiest voice, batting her eyes playfully.
“Is there anything out here with my name on it?”
“Yeah, me.” She placed her elbows on the desktop, rested her chin on the back of her hands, and batted her eyes again. “I went down to Greenwich Village and had your initials tattooed on a very private part of my anatomy last—”
“I’m not kidding around, Anita,” Cole interrupted.
“Boy, you’re serious this afternoon.” Her smile disappeared as she scanned the desk quickly. Usually he gave her that dimpled smile she adored and a compliment on her hair or her outfit. “Oh, yeah, here’s something.” She handed him a large brown envelope with his name neatly typed across the front.
“Who gave this to you?” Cole wanted to know.
Anita shrugged. “I don’t know. A messenger must have left it on my desk while I was using the restroom. I didn’t notice it was here until you said something.”
Cole turned abruptly and headed toward a small conference room off to the side of the reception area before she had finished speaking. She pushed out her lower lip, pouting. Usually he was so polite.
Cole moved inside the conference room, closed the door, ripped open the envelope, and poured out its contents—a typed note, an official-looking document, and a small key that clattered onto the tabletop. He picked up the key, shoved it into his pocket, then read the note. It made two requests. First, he was to take out an obituary in the New York Times marking his father’s death. Second, he was to proceed immediately to the Chase Bank branch a few blocks down Fifth Avenue from the Gilchrist building and retrieve the contents of a safe-deposit box the key would open.
Cole picked up the official-looking document that had been inside the envelope. It was a death certificate with his father’s name on it. Jim Egan had appeared unannounced at Gilchrist’s reception desk six months ago. It was the first time Cole had seen his father since high school graduation. The elder Egan had taken Cole to lunch—a sandwich, chips, and a Coke at a delicatessen on 47th Street. The conversation at the deli had been full of uncomfortable pauses and there were no great revelations as to the elder Egan’s nearly lifelong absence. After lunch, the encounter had culminated with a strange, forced handshake in front of the Gilchrist building. Cole had offered a tour of the trading floor, but his father had adamantly refused, then taken off down Fifth Avenue without another word, disappearing into the lunch crowd hurrying over the sidewalk.
Cole stared at the death certificate. Christ, if he had just known that would be the last time they would ever see each other, he might have pushed harder for answers to the questions plaguing him for so long. And he might have said something to his father that mattered.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Inner Sanctum
A Signet Book / published by arrangement with the author
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1997 by Stephen Frey
This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.
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ISBN: 0-7865-4303-5
A SIGNET BOOK®
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SIGNET and the “S” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.
Electronic edition: October, 2003
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Special Ebook Feature: Insights and Excerts of Stephen Frey’s The Legacy
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