Rigged (12 page)

D
avid should have seen the bombshell coming the minute Harriet led him into the vacant office on the fifteenth floor, then quickly took her leave, mumbling something under her breath about coffee and doughnuts and a going-away party. Instead, David simply stood there like an idiot, in the middle of the empty fifteen-by-fifteen space, staring at the bare walls and the pair of floor-to-ceiling windows, wondering why the hell Reston had wanted to meet in an empty room rather than in his own office, which was right next door.

When Reston finally arrived, David never had a chance to ask that question—because right behind Reston was Giovanni, and right behind Giovanni were two men in overalls carrying an oversized wooden desk.

“Somebody moving in here?” David asked as Giovanni checked out the view and Reston directed the two men toward a corner.

“Yeah,” Giovanni answered. “You.”

David stared at him. Giovanni pointed through the glass, toward a spot off to the left.

“Hey, you can see the Brooklyn Bridge. Might even be better than your view, Nicky.”

David cleared his throat.

“Excuse me, Mr. Giovanni, I think I misunderstood—”

“David,” Reston interrupted, as the two moving men finished with the desk and headed out of the room, “shut up and listen.”

He shut the door behind the men, then crossed his arms against his chest. Giovanni turned away from the window and aimed his handsome smile at David.

“I told you that this place is changing—well, turns out it’s changing a bit faster than even I predicted. David, tomorrow I’m giving my notice. I’ve chosen not to run for reelection as chairman of the board. I’m leaving the Merc.”

The announcement was like a gunshot to David’s chest. He exhaled, leaning back against a stark white wall. Giovanni was the whole reason he had come to the energy exchange. And now, barely a month later, Giovanni was leaving? Why? It didn’t make sense. Giovanni seemed to love his job—and he certainly loved the Merc. He was the most loyal and proud leader one could want. Why would he leave?

Or was it entirely his choice?
Could he have been pushed out by Gallo and the old-school traders, with whom he seemed so much at odds? David glanced at Reston, trying to read the Texan’s face. He could see a mixture of emotions there: sadness, apprehension—but also anticipation.
Exhilaration.

Maybe David was thinking about this all wrong. Maybe Giovanni really did want to leave—for good reasons. David thought back to the conversation he had had with Reston that evening in the hallway. Reston had said that Giovanni couldn’t enact real changes at the Merc—because he had too much to lose. Well, maybe Giovanni was leaving to give Reston a chance to fight those battles head on.

“I don’t know what to say,” David exhaled, looking from one man to the other, from his idol to his boss. “Mr. Giovanni—why?”

David hadn’t meant for the question to come out like that—or even at all. But it was such a shock, he hadn’t been able to censor himself.

Giovanni simply laughed.

“Too many reasons. Or maybe not enough reasons. It doesn’t matter—my decision is made.”

Obviously, Giovanni wasn’t going to tell David any more than that. Hell, maybe Giovanni simply didn’t want to be there anymore. He was incredibly wealthy, after all. He owned a number of companies and could spend his life in any city in the world. He could even go after one of the New York sports franchises if he so desired.

The fact was, he was going.

And who did that leave in charge?

Giovanni stepped away from the window, crossed the room, and put his arm around Reston’s wide shoulders.

“We’re bringing in a new chairman in a few months, but for the moment, unofficially, you’re looking at the new head of the New York Mercantile Exchange.”

Christ.
When Reston had first floated the idea a month ago—that he could one day be running the place—David had been naive enough to think it might be possible. But over the past few weeks he’d realized how insane an idea like that really was. Reston was in his midthirties. He was an outsider, a Texan with Irish blood. To go up against Gallo and his ilk, without Giovanni there to back him up—it seemed insane. Reston was going to get eaten alive.

David stifled those thoughts for the moment and held out his hand.

“Congratulations, Nick.”

Reston grinned as he shook David’s hand. Then Giovanni dropped an even bigger bombshell.

“And as my final act as chairman, tomorrow I’m making you vice president of strategy. This is your office, and from now on you’re Nicky’s right-hand man.”

David opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Vice president of strategy
. He was twenty-five years old. He’d been at the Merc for less than a month. He’d shown some sparks of ingenuity, sure; he’d befriended the younger traders, had some success with many of Reston’s projects, and had written a damn good speech on Norwegian crude. But there had to be dozens of other people who were more qualified. This seemed impossible. Ridiculous. This was happening too fast.

He realized there had to be a deeper reason why Giovanni would make him a vice president of the exchange. Once before he had felt like a pawn in a game between Gallo and Giovanni. Maybe he really was a pawn—and now Giovanni was striking back at Gallo and his kind by putting one of his kids in an office on the fifteenth floor. The truth was, David hadn’t yet really proved himself. He hadn’t yet had that chance. No doubt, this move would create a shit-storm downstairs; sure, some of the traders liked David, but would they accept him as a figure of any sort of authority?

“I’m stunned,” David finally managed. Truthfully, he was way more than stunned. He was a range of emotions that ran from terrified all the way to skeptical. He knew he was being given this promotion for reasons other than his own performance—and that scared him. He also knew he would be put in a precarious position with the board and the traders—which made him even more nervous. But still, it wasn’t something he was going to turn down, that was for sure. How many twenty-five-year-olds got the chance to be vice president of anything? Even if it was just a title, he was going to try to enjoy the moment.

Instead of a response, Giovanni reached out and gave him a full embrace. Then he headed for the door, Reston right behind him.

“You keep your head down and do whatever the fuck Nicky tells you to do,” Giovanni said as he exited the room. “And, David, don’t ever forget: there’s a lot more to be scared of around here than bears.”

With that, David was left alone in his office.

Windows, walls, and a door.

His own goddamn office.

T
HE REST OF
the day went by so fast, David didn’t even mind the fact that he was still boxing up his cubicle when Harriet passed by on her way home—a sure sign that he was the last one left standing, aside from the security guards and an odd janitor or two. He was so engulfed in the boxes and his own thoughts that it took him a moment to realize Harriet had paused behind him, looking over his shoulders at his piles of crap and multiple binders of unfinished projects. Then she shook her head.

“I feel like my little boy’s moving away to college or something,” she said, offering a sad smile. “I kind of liked having you out here. Now you’ll have a door that you can close, and I won’t have anyone to bitch at when I’m PMS-ing.”

David grinned at her. As far as he could tell, Harriet was the only one Reston and Giovanni had told about the change that was coming tomorrow—although she’d only mentioned it once to David during the day, when he’d caught her tearing up on her way back from lunch. Giovanni’s leaving had been a huge blow to her, since she’d been working for him for such a long time. But she seemed genuinely proud that David was moving up so fast—and she seemed at worst neutral on Reston’s temporary ascension to the Merc’s highest office.

“You know my door is always open to you,” David responded, still in disbelief that he’d have an actual door, let alone one that he could close. “And I could use a good bitching-out once or twice a week, just to keep me grounded.”

Harriet gave him a little hug, then started back toward the elevators.

“Try not to stay all night again,” she said as she disappeared from view. “It’s after ten already. If this keeps up, my boyfriend is going to run away with your girlfriend, and then where will we be? Stuck with each other for good?”

David laughed and went back to boxing up his things. The job was taking longer than it should have because he was having trouble concentrating. He was boiling up inside with his good news—and dying to tell someone, especially Serena and his parents. He hadn’t yet informed them of his good news because he didn’t think it was the sort of thing you announced over the phone. And since Giovanni and Reston weren’t making any noise about it until tomorrow, he figured it was best to keep things quiet while he was still in the building. With all the security the place had, God only knew who was listening.

Ten minutes later, he finally gave up on trying to sort through the files stacked next to his desk and simply jammed them all into the last available cardboard box. Then he grabbed his jacket off his chair and headed toward the elevator.

The fifteenth floor was like a ghost town; Harriet had obviously hit the main lights on her way out, and only a few errant lamps kept the place even remotely aglow.

David reached the elevator and hit the button for the lobby, then yanked his coat on over his shoulders. The lights above the elevator doors indicated that it was on its way down from the lounge upstairs, only a few floors away. David had just begun to straighten his lapels when the elevator doors slid open—and he suddenly found himself face to face with Dominick Gallo.

The Don twirled his still smoldering cigar, then stepped to one side, making room.

“On your way home, Mr. Vice President of Strategy?”

Christ.
David considered taking the stairs. But he knew he had no choice now; Gallo wasn’t going to let him off that easy. He gritted his teeth and stepped into the metal box, a bare few feet from the old trader. The air inside the elevator was heavy with a noxious mixed scent of cigar, whiskey, and aftershave. David tried to breathe shallow as the elevator doors slid shut in front of him—leaving him truly alone with Gallo for the first time since he’d arrived at the Merc.

“You must be pretty excited,” Gallo said, putting the cigar back in his mouth.

David glanced at him, realizing for the first time that he was a good head taller than the old man—even counting the three inches of wiry silver hair sprouting up from Gallo’s head. Still, the Don was such a presence, it felt like there was barely room for both of them in the elevator.

“I guess even secrets travel fast around here,” David responded, returning his gaze to the elevator doors. He was counting seconds in his head, wishing that the damn box could go a little faster.

“Nothing goes on here without me knowing about it.”

Gallo was facing him head-on now, that cigar pumping up and down. Even by way of his peripheral vision, David could tell that the man was fuming. His deep-set eyes had narrowed in their concentric pockets of blackened skin, and his yellowed teeth were visible all the way to the gums.

“Like your little excursions with some of the younger floor traders. You’ve made quite an impression on my boys, kid. Some of them even think of you as one of ’em. But I know better.”

David shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m not trying to cause any problems, sir. Just making friends and trying to learn about the business.”

Gallo cocked his head to the side, then took his cigar out of his mouth and pointed it at David.

“You really want to learn something about this business?”

David glanced at the old man. Part of him wanted to crawl right up through the ceiling panels of the elevator and shimmy up the cable to freedom—but another side of him couldn’t help but take the bait. Maybe, somehow, he could get Gallo to warm to him. Or maybe, at the very least, he could find out why Gallo seemed to hate—and if Giovanni was right, fear—David so much. Anyway, David had never shied away from a challenge in his life. It wasn’t in his personality.

“I’m not here for the morning coffee and bagels.”

“Then let’s go for a little ride,” Gallo responded as the eleva
tor slowed to a stop in the lobby and the doors slid open—and David’s pulse thundered through his veins. “My limo is waiting out front.”

T
HE TWENTY-MINUTE RIDE
from the Merc deep into the heart of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, had been the most awkward, uncomfortable trip David had ever taken. Gallo had spent the entire time with his ear to his BlackBerry and had only broken away from whatever business he was conducting to gesture at David twice: first, when they were halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge, to point out the view of the Merc from even lower than Lower Manhattan; and then again, when they turned off Eighteenth Avenue and onto a side street, to let David know that they were nearing their destination.

“I grew up one hundred yards from here,” Gallo grunted, slipping his phone back into his overcoat and finally relighting his cigar. “I still own the house where my grandfather washed dishes to pay for a little space in the attic, after he came through Ellis Island. ’Course, I don’t live there anymore. But it stays in the family.”

David nodded, pretending he understood. He watched as the colored awnings and tapered row houses flashed by, taking in the cement stoops, brick-walled storefronts, and dimly lit alleys that lined either side of the narrow avenue. He wasn’t sure exactly where on Eighteenth they had turned off, but he guessed they were just a few blocks north of the Bay Ridge Parkway. Right in the heart of the Italian section of the borough. The most heavily populated Italian neighborhood in the country, it was a community of more than fifty thousand—at least twenty thousand of whom still spoke Italian day to day instead of English.

“My father’s family probably knew yours,” David said. “They might have come over on the same boat.”