"The Trade" by Rob Schwartz

Dan “Goldie” Gallagher started his Monday like he always did, on Sunday. He slipped on a pair of khakis, an untucked button-down shirt, and stepped into a well-worn pair of Gucci loafers. He checked his Seiko Bullhead: 1:42 p.m. He then went to the office at 3 Maiden Lane, where Liberty & Sons Futures kept their Telex, Telerate, Reuters, and Dow Jones terminals. He absorbed the news in the quiet of the sixth-floor office, devouring the feeds so he could be ready to make the first trades by 8:20 Monday morning. The wall clock above the Telex machine ticked steadily.

He loved Sundays in the Financial District. The wind blew pages from abandoned New York Times like tumbleweeds. Everyone else was brunching or watching football or nursing hangovers. Everyone else was sipping life. Goldie was gulping down work.

The Sunday time at the office captivated Goldie. Amid the data, the charts, the news, he never felt more alive. Inputs came in and theories emerged. This was his ritual.

Goldie’s boss, Len Kaplan, was the owner of Liberty & Sons and made his fortune a few years back during the 1973 OPEC embargo. He had taken every dollar he could scrape together — his own, his parents', his brother’s, his college roommate’s — and gone long on heating oil and gasoline futures. Then OPEC cut supply. Len was buying while everyone in the Middle East was negotiating. He sold while people were lining up at gas stations. He sold and won big.

Buy low. Sell high. The trick is knowing when.

Len used the proceeds to start Liberty & Sons. He was a bachelor at the time. The “& Sons” was fiction. As Len would say after a few rum and Cokes, “I don’t have any sons. That’s why I’m free to trade like a lunatic.”

Oil in the early seventies. Then the Russian Grain Deal. And finally, the Gold Run-Up.

That was when Len met Dan Gallagher.

The kid was a dropout from West Chester University in Pennsylvania. Len, like everyone after him, would ask, “Where you from?”

“West Chester,” Dan would say.

“Scarsdale?”

“West Chester, P.A.”

And Len, like everyone else, would not know what to say after that.

Dan, soon-to-be Goldie, was never any good at things that had currency in West Chester. Things like baseball and metal shop. This lack of West Chester skills did not please Dan's father and he made his displeasure known.

"They put you in Right Field because that's where you can do the least damage." The old man said. That stung. Goldie knew that Right Field came with batting ninth. Last man up. That was him. But Goldie didn't sour on baseball. He loved the stats. Standing in Right Field during the long innings when nobody hit the ball his way, Goldie would work the numbers. Tommy Jenkins was batting .312 with runners in scoring position but only .198 with bases empty. The team was 11-3 when they scored first, 2-9 when they didn't. Goldie's own .186 put him somewhere between a replacement-level utility infielder and a backup catcher who couldn't throw.

With no athletic scholarship and money extremely tight, Goldie found his way to the local community college. But after a few semesters, his tuition money dried up.  Before he left school, an economics professor took him aside and told him to think about commodities trading.

“The stock and bond folks want Ivy League degrees,” he told Goldie. “The commodities guys will take you off a boat if you can add two plus two. And you can do a helluva lot more than that.”

Goldie came off a train.

Within his first week, he landed at Liberty & Sons as a runner, literally sprinting with paper trade tickets in his hand between 3 Maiden Lane and the COMEX trading floor at 4 World Trade Center. The pit smelled like sweat, ink, and burned coffee. As a runner, you listened for quotes, shouted bids and asks, then ran the intel back. Next you graduated to the phones, writing down orders while a senior broker screamed in your ear. Screw up one number and you were toast.

All day long you heard a different language:

“Call the pit.” 

“Where’s my fill?” 

“Tell Len we’re short the beans and long the hogs.”

Goldie loved it. The energy. The action. The game. 

He went from runner to clerk in three months. Within eighteen months, he was studying for his Series 3. He was in deep and obsessed.

In 1979, he made the trade that would make him Goldie.

It happened when gold, the commodity, hovered around two hundred dollars an ounce. While everyone at Liberty was distracted by soybeans and cattle, Goldie was immersed in the study of gold. He tracked the December 1979 and February 1980 contracts. He read and listened to everything he could get his eyes and ears on — newspapers, reports, gossip. Inflation was spiking at home. Iran was on fire abroad. He spent every waking moment connecting dots. 

That Sunday, at 5:52 p.m., he ran the numbers on historical inflation versus gold. His pulse hammered in his ears. His hands shook.

Monday morning, he blew past Len’s secretary, Carla, to pitch the idea.

“Hear me out,” he said. “If Iran collapses and oil goes through the roof, gold’s going to explode. We get in now, it’s your OPEC magic all over again.”

Len looked at him. Or maybe through him.

“Don’t move.”

Len picked up the phone and punched seven numbers.

“Jimmy, would you buy gold today?” Pause. 

“That’s what I thought.”

He hung up and punched seven more.

“Shelly, would you lay your fortune on gold or pork bellies?” Pause. 

“Treif, you hypocrite.”

He hung up and punched seven more.

“Tony P….Len Kaplan. Gold or beans?” Pause. 

“O.J.? You’re crazy.”

Len hung up.

“The three best traders I know say no on gold.”

It was like listening to his father all over again. 

“I’ll tell you what, kid,” Len said. “I’ll give you a million to make the trade. If it’s a bust, you’re staying at your current salary for three years. No bonus.”

“And if it works out?”

“I’ll make you fucking rich.”

He did the paperwork for the Liberty funds. He also put every dollar of his own money into the trade, everything he had saved since moving to New York. Ten thousand, two hundred seventy-two dollars.

His move was gold. Long.

He blocked out every distraction a young guy in his twenties would have. No girls. No booze. No drugs. No sports. No late-night Channel J. Everything was geared toward gold. And everything proved him right. Gold launched like a rocket, two hundred to three hundred to five hundred. By January of 1980, gold hit eight hundred fifty dollars an ounce. And then Goldie sold.

Just like that, Liberty booked four million in revenue. Just like that, Goldie turned ten thousand into one point two million. Just like that, Goldie went from plebe to king.

From that day forward, Dan Gallagher was known as “Goldie.” Len gave him the nickname and a five-hundred-thousand-dollar bonus. It was more money than Goldie had ever seen.

He was rich and just old enough to drink.

Goldie practically ran down to Jim Brady’s Tavern and sat at the bar. He ordered a draft Bud to celebrate and to quench his astonishing thirst.

It was ten a.m.

#

Thirty-four months later, Goldie was working a new theory. This time, soybeans.

He'd been following weather reports since late May. Drought in the Corn Belt. A farmer’s misery was a trader’s opportunity. 

On his way to the office this late July morning, Goldie stopped at his usual deli. Bacon, egg and cheese on a roll. Coffee, black. But he was thirsty -- unusually thirsty -- so he wandered to the refrigerator case in back and reached for an Evian. Without even closing the glass door, he opened the bottle and downed the water. 

He paid and walked to the office. It was hot. Sweltering. These were the last days of the trading summer before everyone disappeared for August. The bosses would head to the Hamptons. The associates to Fire Island or the Jersey Shore. The grunts would stay in the city on tar beach. Goldie had money for a place near water, but he chose to stay in the city. He would sweat and ponder ways to find a gusher of cash.

At the office, Len was in on the soybean trade. The rest of his crew had their heads in metals and pork bellies, but Len had come to trust his golden boy from West Chester.

"I got an extra egg and cheese for you," Len said.

Goldie could barely finish his sandwich and was drinking the last of his water.

"Nah, I'm good."

"Good. Two for me." Len had packed on the pounds since the Gold Run. When he wasn't eating a meal, he was snacking. He took a big bite and spoke with his mouth full. "You wanna come to the beach this weekend? I finally got the boat in the water."

"No thanks. I've got work to do."

“What work? You got money now.”

Goldie didn't respond.

"Hello. Earth to Goldie."

"Just watching this weather report. This drought could not be better for us."

Carla appeared in the doorway. Len waved her in.

"Can you believe this guy?" Len said. "Never not working."

"Tell me about it. I can't even get him to come out for drinks."

Goldie barely looked up. Carla gave Len papers to sign and walked out, her citrus perfume lingering.

“Goldie, listen to me.” Goldie was focused on the feed of a Telex machine. Len reached down and pulled the plug.

"I'm serious, kid. You're missing it here." Len wiped his mouth. "Markets don't kill people. They just show you who's already burning. And you, my friend, are on fire.”

“What the…”

“You need to chill.” Len continued. “You made some good money; there’s more to be had, no doubt. But I think you need to chase something else.”

“Len, this drought is like an act of God and God is giving us the trade!”

“Please,” said Len. “The point is, you make some money, good money, then you put some in the bank and the rest you spend.”

Goldie stared at the horse-bit on his loafer.

"You buy an apartment, you buy a house in the Hamptons, you buy a boat." Said Len. "Then when the expenses keep you from sleeping, you go back in the market and make more. I mean, what's the point of all of this?" 

“The point is to be right,” said Goldie. 

“I thought the point was to get rich,” said Len. Goldie heard the words but wasn’t listening. “When’s the last time you banged a chick?”

“What are you talking about?” said Goldie. “I see plenty of girls.”

“I’m not talking about seeing. I’m talking about shtupping.”

“Come on, Len. Focus.”

“All I’m saying is that Carla is a babe. And I’ve seen her friends. Marrone, hot.”

“Ok, Len, I promise you, once this drought trade is through, I’ll take someone out.”

Len looked at Goldie. “Do you like guys?”

Goldie burst out laughing. It was his father all over again. 

“It’s ok! My cousin Gary is married to a guy named Stephen.”

#

It was another glorious Sunday of emptiness and quiet. Goldie stopped at a tiny bodega on Pearl Street. It was one of the few shops open on a weekend in the Financial District. Coffee, black. And what had now become a necessity -- Two Evians.

At the office, he flipped the heavy toggle on the Telex. A low electric hum, then the mechanical keys began their relentless, icy chatter and the continuous yellow paper rolling upward through the glass, spitting out facts that could be news, data, or nothing. He flicked on the two radios. 1010 WINS for news. WCBS for the National Weather on the 8s. He fired up the Reuters monitor and watched the screen bloom green.

Goldie opened the lid to his coffee and let the machines fill his head. This was the part of the week he loved most. Not the trading. Not the money. This. The inputs. The theories forming like weather systems. On the floor, you executed. But on Sunday mornings, you were God — you could see everything before it happened, and nothing had gone wrong yet.

He was deep into Saturday's Barron's, the drought maps and the November soybean contracts turning in his mind, when it arrived.

Citrus. Lemon, precisely.

He tried to return to the page. But the scent was all he could think about suddenly. Lemon mixed with something earthy.

He put down the paper.

He followed the scent down the hallway to Len's office. The door was half-open.

"Oh my God." Carla pressed a hand to her chest. "You scared me."

She was in a Fordham Football t-shirt, untucked, and jeans that sat low on her hips. Her dark hair was loose. She had a spread of folders open across Len's desk, a yellow legal pad filling up with her handwriting. 

"What are you doing here?"

"Catching up." She gestured at the folders. "Len needs the Chicago contracts organized before Tuesday and I got behind." She looked at him, her lips rising. "Is that a problem?"

Goldie was quiet. The numbers in his mind were giving way to shapes. 

"I'm here every Sunday," he said finally.

"I know." She smiled, and there was something in it he couldn't price. price. "I figured you wouldn't mind."

She came around the desk toward him, to retrieve a folder, he thought, and then she was so close that he stepped back and caught his shoe on the corner of a box of files someone had left against the wall. He went down hard, his coffee spilling, his hand bracing his thin body.

"Goldie!"

She was already crouching beside him, her hand on the inside of his arm, pulling. Her grip was surprisingly firm. He let himself be raised.

"Oh, my God, sit down." She steered him into Len's chair. "I'll get you some water."

He sat. The Telex was chattering down the hall. He could hear the WCBS anchor giving the weather. Dry again through Wednesday. He tried to reconstruct his thinking about the beans. If the drought holds another two weeks…

She came back with his Evian. Set it on the desk in front of him. He watched her hand leave it.

"Take a sip," she said.

"I'm fine."

She sat in the chair across from him and looked at him.

"You come in every Sunday," she said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"Why?"

Goldie looked at the water bottle. Then at the Reuters terminal glowing green through Len's open door.

"Everyone thinks this job is about the money," he said.

"Isn't it?"

"No." The word came out flat and certain, the way he said sell. "The money tells you if you were right. That's all it is. A receipt."

"So you don't care about being rich?"

"I care about being right." He said. “And proving my father wrong.”

She bit her bottom lip and looked away. 

“I don’t know where your father is now,” she said. “But if you were my son, I’d be proud.”

Goldie smiled ever so slightly. He noticed a small gold cross on her tanned neck.

"You hungry?" she said. "I was going to grab something from the deli on John Street.”

Goldie picked up the Evian. Drank. 

"I'm good," he said. He stood and showed the water bottle. "Thanks for this."

“At least walk with me?” 

“It’s tempting.”

“That’s the point. 

“Next time.” Goldie walked back to his desk. 

Down the hall, he heard Carla gather her folders. The soft sound of her closing Len's door. Her tennis shoes squeaking in the hallway and the elevator door closing. 

He sat with the Barron’s open and did not read it.

The scent of earthy lemon was still in the air.

#

Monday came and went. Goldie watched the soybean trade and duked it out in the pit for Liberty's clients. He skipped lunch and drank more water. He'd never been so thirsty. At 5:51pm, after clearing his paperwork, he hit the deli, grabbed two more liters of water and went home. He drank them instantly. The work seemed to burn through him. By 8:00 p.m., he was fast asleep.

Tuesday morning, Goldie opened his eyes. His apartment was bare. It was a stylish loft at 131 Prince Street on the corner of Wooster. Cast iron, big windows, high ceilings on the outside. Exposed brick, cement floors, a kitchen area. Yet, while the world around him was drunk with consuming, Goldie bought almost nothing. The only furniture was a futon mattress on the floor and a simple table with two chairs. He had a few pots, pans, dishes and silverware for six, yet he used nothing much more than a fork and a bowl. No one to entertain. He could count on one hand the dates he'd been on. The market was his mistress.

Goldie walked to the shower and let the hot water wake him. He scrubbed and shampooed. Soon he felt something odd. Water above his ankles. The shower wasn’t draining. When he looked down, clumps of his hair were spread around him like confetti on the trading floor. He turned off the water and stepped out immediately. He ran to the mirror and wiped away the condensation. He studied his face and head. His reflection stared back: older eyes, dry skin, creased neck. 

Was he going bald? He looked intently. Recession at the temples. He felt it thinning in the back. He was twenty-five years old.

The numbers then came automatically. He began to think about his hair. Earn a dollar, lose a hair. One point five million follicles, give or take. 1.6 with the bonus. The wrinkles he couldn't price yet. Not enough pattern data. 

He reached for his suit. Breakfast at the deli. More water. Three bottles this time. Work. Another day in the pit. The drought continued. The long play on soybeans was accruing beautifully. Shouts, trades, paperwork. He walked home.

The thirst wouldn't quit. He was drinking water constantly. His body felt light. Like he was hollowing out. At night he'd wake up soaked in sweat, the sheets damp, and he'd stumble to the kitchen for more water. The fire within him refused to quell.

#

Friday morning, for the first time in months, something was different.  He woke up hard.

He couldn't remember if it was a dream. He just lay there feeling it. Not touching it. Just feeling it strain against his boxers, trying to burst through the sheet.

He finally got up, walked to the shower, turned on the water. Careful not to touch it. He washed himself, let the soap roll down his thin, wiry frame. He stepped out and placed a towel on his solid shaft like it was a robe hook. He got another towel to dry off. 

He bypassed his morning sandwich and went straight to the back case to grab his water. Two bottles. He contemplated a third but decided he’d need a break mid-morning, and he could get another then. 

He entered the grim lobby at 3 Maiden Lane, rode the elevator up, rushed to his desk. Counted off the minutes and seconds until the market opened.

At 8:19 a.m., he dialed his contact on the floor.

"This is Goldie. At 8:20 I want you to sell every one of our soybeans."

"Copy that."

Goldie stayed on the line. The clock ticking down. Thirty-six seconds to go. The office was empty on this summer Friday. Just Goldie, the phone, the trade.

Fifteen seconds.

He opened his Evian and guzzled.

Six seconds.

Five.

Another sip.

"SELL. SELL. SELL."

Goldie listened to the mayhem on the other end. Total victory. This could be his finest work. 

He hung up. The office was quiet as the millions piled up. Goldie finished his water. His heart was pounding like it was about to give out. 

He was still hard.

#

5:16 p.m., Carla stopped by Goldie's desk.

"I know the answer will be no," she said, "but we're meeting up with the Condor crew and a few others from the pit. Wanna come?"

"How about yes?"

"Yes?!"

"Yes."

"Oh my God. I'll alert the crew. We're going to the Seaport."

The South Street Seaport had just opened. Eighteenth-century buildings with twentieth-century stores and bars.

The group met at Jeremy's Ale House. Carla and two other assistants from different firms named Maria and Donna. Maria was dark-haired with olive skin. Donna was a strawberry blonde with gray eyes. They sat at a table with three guys.

Goldie recognized Billy Simmons from Condor Trading. The other two looked like every guy he'd ever seen racing around the pit – blue button-downs and khakis. 

The joint was rocking. Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough” blasting.

"Well, look who it is," Billy said. "The Golden Boy of Liberty."

"Goldie!" Carla shouted.

One of the traders introduced himself. "Mike Sweeney.” And another, the music too loud for his name to register. 

Goldie shook their hands.

"You're a legend," Billy said.

"Yeah, my boss calls you guys Sons of Bitches instead of Liberty & Sons.” Mike chimed in. They all laughed. Goldie looked off into the distance. He didn’t even hear them. 

A waitress came by. Goldie ordered a water. And a beer.

"Kamikazes for everyone," Mike said.

Goldie didn't say no. His mouth was dry. 

The evening wore on. The drinks kept flowing. Goldie found himself between Carla and Donna. They were both flirting. He was thinking about Carla when Donna snapped her well-manicured thumb on her red Bic lighter to light her cigarette. She inhaled quickly and blew smoke away from Goldie. 

"You're from Westchester, right? Scarsdale?"

"No. West Chester, PA."

"Oh."

"Yeah. People are always a little disappointed when I say that."

"I have cousins in Scranton."

"Where are you from?"

"Where do you want me to be from?" She cozied up.

"I'm guessing the Island."

"Jersey, baby. Belleville."

Around ten-thirty, everyone was loaded. Donna put her tongue in his ear and whispered, "Irish exit."

Carla watched as Donna pulled Goldie away from the table. He stumbled as he looked back, her brown eyes locked on his blue ones. He leaned toward Carla and made a move to sit back down, but Donna pulled him away. With his gaze fixed on Carla, Donna dragged him out of the bar and onto the street.

"You live around here?"

Goldie looked around. “I think so.”

Donna wasted no time. She hailed a cab. They tumbled in.

"What's your address?" she said. 

"131 Prince."

The cab turned around and raced up Water Street to Houston.

When they stopped, Goldie took out a wad of bills.

"Got change for a hundred?" He said. 

The driver was not pleased.

Goldie put the bill in the tray. "Keep it."

Donna grabbed him in the elevator. She started kissing him. She felt him. She suddenly stopped and held his face. 

“I don’t know what it is, but I have to have you now.” She kissed him again as he moved from her embrace and began fumbling with the keys. He got the door open. They stumbled into the loft. There was nothing to knock over, so they tumbled right to the futon.

“I’m not usually like this.” Donna took off her skirt and panties. “I’m going to CPA school.”

Goldie stood. He took off his shirt. Undid his belt. Removed his trousers. The pants caught on his shoes, but he got them off.

He stood above her.

Now naked except for the Gucci loafers.

She looked up at him.

"My God, you’re a real skinnymarink”

Goldie tumbled onto the futon and stretched out.

Donna moved on top of him and started kissing. She worked her way down his chest, his stomach.

Moonlight poured into the loft. A siren wailed in the distance.

Donna had him. 

Goldie felt all that was left of him gather up from his feet, his fingertips, the back of his head, and converge at his waist, up through his shaft, and then explode.

She gagged. He flamed out. 

"Goldie?" She said. 

No response.

"Goldie!"

She slapped his cheek. Slapped harder. She felt for his pulse on his neck. Put her ear to his nose. Nothing. 

Her hands shook as she put her panties on. Then her skirt. Then her shirt, although she couldn't get the buttons right. 

Should she call 911? She was looking for a little fun on a Friday night. This was the last way she thought this would end up.

She hurriedly slipped out the front door and onto the street. The sound of her heels on the concrete echoed for blocks. 

#

Several hours later, Len was at the coroner's office on 30th Street and First Avenue.

The coroner pulled the gurney from the wall.

“You're his employer, not his father, right" The coroner. Early fifties. Tortoiseshell half-glasses perched on his nose.

"I'm his boss. I loved him. But yeah, employer, whatever."

Len identified the body. 

“It shows he died of natural causes,” said the coroner.

"Nothing natural about a twenty-five-year-old kid dying during a blow job,” said Len. 

“Yes, well, Daniel was twenty-five,” began the coroner.  “Chronologically.”

Len stared blankly. 

"I've seen this in cancer patients who fight to stay alive,” the coroner said. “Daniel spent himself.”

Len stared at the white sheet that covered the body.

"What line of work was he in?" asked the coroner.

“Commodities. We’re traders. Soybeans, precious metals…futures."

"Futures." 

The coroner slid the gurney back into the vault. The metal door shut with a clang.

Rob Schwartz writes from New York City. His work has appeared in Hobart, Bristol Noir, The Words Faire, Vine Leaves Press, The North Lit Review and Amsterdam Quarterly. A most recent work is featured in “Top Stories of the Month” on Fiction on the Web. He is currently working on a collection of short stories.