Read Rigged for Free Online Page B

started as a potato exchange. That’s right, people came to us to trade potato contracts. Then orange juice and sugar.”
    “And now?” David asked.
    “Energy,” Reston said, slamming his emptied glass of scotch onto the table in front of him. “Ener-fucking-gy.”
    “Nick,” Giovanni chided, “you always gotta complicate things. Oil, David. We trade oil on the NYMEX. Oil is energy, yeah, but it’s more than that. Oil is money. Oil is power. Oil is everything. That’s why we’re the most important institution in the city—fuck it, in the world.”
    David leaned back in his chair, watching the two of them as they played off each other.
    “Nine-eleven,” Reston said, waving a hand above his head as if conjuring it all with one gesture. “You know what one of the first businesses in New York City that reopened after the disaster was? The NYMEX. Not the banks, not the supermarkets, not the schools. The Merc. Because oil is the lifeblood of this country. Our economy runs on it. Hell, oil is the new currency.”
    “And you guys trade oil,” David said, but Giovanni shook his head.
    “No, we run the exchange. The traders trade. Both Nick and I used to be traders. I spent twenty-five years on the floor. Nick put in ten. The traders technically own the NYMEX. But we run it.”
    David nodded. He had a vague notion about the trading world—Merrill Lynch had traders too, guys in suits and suspenders who spent their days on the chaotic New York Stock Exchange, shouting out the orders that were sent down to themvia phone and computer from the big boys in the corner offices. Even though he’d been to business school, David knew very little about their work—really just what he’d seen in movies and on TV. But Giovanni and Reston were talking about traders who traded oil, which he guessed was a very different game. Even the word itself, oil, invoked emotion, considering how much it was talked about in the news and on the streets.
    “So the traders control the price of oil,” David started, putting it all together.
    “No,” Reston corrected. “Like on any exchange, supply and demand control the price of oil. The traders try to predict that price, try to react to that price, and try like hell to get rich from that price.”
    “Look,” Giovanni suddenly interrupted, “don’t worry about that right now. Worry about it on Monday, because starting Monday, you work for me.”
    David stared at him. Giovanni finished his scotch, stood up, and walked away from the table, heading right for the restaurant’s front door. David watched in shock, realizing that Giovanni wasn’t coming back. Just like that— starting Monday, you work for me —no title, no salary, just the statement hanging in the air.
    Reston grinned at him.
    “You don’t get it, do you? He wants you to be one of ‘Giovanni’s Kids.’ Make some fucking phone calls, ask around. This is what he does. He finds young guys like you, senses energy in them. He trains you on the Merc and eventually puts you in charge of one of his companies. It’s a golden fucking ticket. But you only have twenty-four hours to decide.”
    Reston reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of hundred-dollar bills. He rose from his seat, throwing the bills onto the table to cover the check.
    “Usually I grow to hate the kids Giovanni throws at me. Little Ivy League brats who end up being way more work than they’re worth. A huge fucking waste of my time. The Merc isn’t something you learn about in some classroom. It’s a battlefield. Sodon’t take this on lightly. Russo, you know what the difference is between oil and potatoes?”
    He leaned close, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
    “Nobody fights wars over potatoes.”
     
    S IX HOURS LATER, David sat on the floor of his apartment, his cordless phone resting precipitously on his lap. The lights were off, the small, spartanly furnished living room bathed in the pseudo-darkness of Midtown at 2:00 A.M. He could hear