The Day Trader Read Free Page B

just happened, my emotions ricocheting from dejection to rage. Finally I stumble to the kitchen and ease into a chair at the scarred wooden table where Melanie and I have eaten so many meals together. My eyes come to rest on a notepad lying beside the sugar bowl and a stack of unpaid bills. In Melanie’s looping script I see that Russell Lake has telephoned four times this evening. I’m supposed to call him back no matter how late it is.
    I touch my neck where Melanie scratched me, then bring my hand in front of my face. My fingertips are stained with blood.

 
    CHAPTER 2
    I’m not a greedy man, so my decision to sell is an easy one.
    At four o’clock yesterday afternoon Unicom closed its first trading session on the Nasdaq at $139 a share, up $119 from the $20 IPO price. In the overnight “casino” market it spiked another $36, to $175 a share, where it opened this morning. So, after plowing my entire inheritance into this one investment, my ten thousand dollars has turned into nearly ninety thousand. I’ve made almost two years’ salary in less than twenty-four hours. That, in a nutshell, is the allure of the stock market.
    As I stare at my computer screen, I can’t help wondering how Melanie would react if she knew about this. I never got a chance to tell her last night. Never got a chance to explain how we could afford to let her quit working. And she had already left this morning when I woke up on the living room sofa, cradling an empty scotch bottle.
    A soft knock on my office door distracts me from some very ugly thoughts. “Who is it?”
    “Russell.”
    I expected to see him as soon as I walked in this morning, but it’s after ten and this is his first appearance.
    “Open up,” he demands.
    He couldn’t sneak up on me today because I closed and locked my door when I got in. “What do you want?” I ask, grudgingly allowing him to enter.
    “Don’t sound so happy to see me,” he says, checking out the dark red marks on my neck. “God, you look awful.”
    “I didn’t get much sleep last night,” I admit, easing back into my desk chair with a loud groan.
    “What happened?”
    Russell should have been a CIA agent instead of a midlevel manager buried in corporate America. Ultimately he unearths everything, as he surely will in this case if I don’t tell him. There will be plenty of clues. I’ll have to change my address because Melanie wants me out of the house as soon as possible—she left that pleasant request in a short, unsigned note I found on my dresser this morning. Russell will be given that new address by the human resources department. And there will be a steady stream of e-mails bouncing back and forth between Melanie, the attorneys, and me as the divorce proceeds. E-mails Russell could read because he monitors the network. So it’s better to be up-front with him about what’s going on, rather than endure his nasty comments about being kept in the dark later on.
    “Melanie wants a divorce.”
    “That’s terrible.” For a moment Russell looks as if he truly feels sorry for me, but his tone lacks compassion. It’s as if he thought my divorce was inevitable and timing was the only question. “What was her reason?” he asks. Like most men who know Melanie, Russell is fascinated by her.
    “I’d rather not discuss it.”
    “Did she find someone else?”
    “Russell.”
    “Sometimes it helps to talk about these things.”
    “Sometimes it doesn’t.”
    As usual, Russell relaxes into the chair on the other side of my desk without being asked. “What will you do about living arrangements? Will you stay in the house with her until the divorce is final?”
    A familiar lump builds in my throat as I think about how I’m being evicted from my own home. Frank Taylor has stolen my wife. Worse, she has let him. “No, I’m going to look for an apartment at lunch.” Melanie never admitted that Taylor was really driving all of this, but I know the truth.
    “Close to the