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regulations are strictly adhered to, and where you can trust your co-traders.”
    “Mr. Seaver.”
    “Yes, Anna?” he asks, looking back over his shoulder at the receptionist.
    “Sorry to interrupt, but this gentleman wants to rent a desk as well,” she says, pointing at the bearded guy. “I thought maybe you’d want to see him now too.”
    Seaver smiles with the satisfaction of a man who knows he’ll make money even if both of us go bankrupt. “Let’s all go in the conference room,” he suggests, gesturing at a door across the lobby.
    “Augustus McKnight.” I offer my hand to the other applicant as we sit down beside each other at the conference room table, but he ignores my gesture.
    “Roger,” he mutters into his shirt, stroking the hair on his chin instead of shaking my hand. A burgundy golf shirt and faded jeans hang loosely on his gaunt frame.
    “Let’s get started,” Seaver says, taking a seat on the other side of the table. “As I was telling Mr. McKnight, I run a very tight operation here. For a thousand dollars a month I’ll set both of you up with an eight-by-eight cubicle, a desk, a chair, a phone, a computer, two screens, and Trader One.”
    Trader One is a software package that provides real-time quotes from major financial markets worldwide and makes reams of research information available. I’ve read about it in all of the trading publications. “Which version?” I ask, trying to make it clear I’m no pigeon.
    “Seven-point-oh. It’s fully loaded,” Seaver snaps. Like I’ve insulted him. “You get Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley research analysis, Bloomberg, Hoover’s, Yahoo!, and most important, real-time quotes. Most of the time you’ll actually see dealer quotes so you’ll know which way the market is really going. And all of the information is piped straight to your desk over T-1 lines with multiple generators backing up the network so summer thunderstorms can’t nuke you in the middle of a hectic day in the markets. It’s a sweet deal here at Bedford. For a thousand bucks a month and the requirement that you run all of your trades through me, I give you the tools to make millions. It costs a little more than the bare-bone shops, but believe me, it’s worth it. Plus, the higher cost of admission keeps out the riff-raff. It’s the difference between a doorman high-rise and a walk-up tenement. Now, I ask you, where would you rather live?”
    I glance over at Roger and he has a blank expression on his face. Like he can’t believe he’s getting himself into this.
    “How much does each trade cost?” I ask, feeling my competitive juices start to flow. It’s going up against suckers like Roger that will make it much easier for me to win at this game.
    “As low as ten bucks.”
    According to my research that’s not a bad price, but I want to be sure of what I’m really getting. “On the in and the out?”
    “Pardon?”
    “You mean it will cost me ten dollars when I buy shares and ten dollars when I sell them?” I ask slowly, making myself as clear as possible. Day traders work on very thin margins where every dime counts.
    “Of course.”
    “But it could be higher than that.” I’ve heard about these guys who own day trading firms. You have to dig to find out what the real deal is.
    Seaver groans, like I’m being a real pain in his ass, but I don’t care. These are all legitimate questions, and I’m not one to back down.
    “It could be, right?” I push. “Higher than ten dollars a trade, I mean.”
    “If my clearing firm has to go to several sources to buy shares for you quickly, the price of a trade could go up,” he admits.
    “How much?”
    Seaver gives me a nasty look. “Say you put in a purchase order for five hundred shares and we have to buy two fifty from one shop and two fifty from another because nobody can fill the whole five-hundred-share order fast,” he explains. “Then you’ve got to pay twice. In that case you pay twenty bucks, but you