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“Maybe you’ll find out someday,” he growled, then grinned in spite of himself. He took Jay’s hand. “Welcome to the club, Mr. West.”

 
    CHAPTER 2
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    Jay placed his briefcase on the arbitrage desk, then removed his suit coat and hung it neatly on the back of his chair. Jay, Bullock, Abby, and a secretary had seats on this side of the bulkhead, while Oliver’s spot was on the other side of the computer monitors and telephone banks beside an administrative assistant. On either side of Oliver’s chair were two unused positions. He had mentioned the possibility of bringing people on board to fill the vacant spots several times; however, Jay had now been at McCarthy & Lloyd for just over a month and nothing had occurred to make him believe Oliver really intended to hire anyone. Hiring more people meant sharing the wealth, something Oliver was loath to do.
    “Hello, Abby,” Jay said cheerfully. It was early, a few minutes after seven-thirty, and she was the only one on the desk. He peered over the computer screens but couldn’t determine if Oliver had arrived. A rumpled suit coat was slung over the back of his chair, but Jay noticed that it was the same one Oliver had worn the day before. “How are you this beautiful July morning?”
    Abby stopped tapping on her keyboard and looked up from the jagged historical graph of the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbing from left to right across one of her monitors. “Hot.”
    “I know what you mean.” New York City was suffering through an oppressive heat wave, and the subway ride from Jay’s Upper West Side apartment down half the length of Manhattan to Wall Street on the number 2 train had been muggy and unpleasant. “This heat is incredible.”
    “Especially when your air conditioner goes on the blink.”
    Jay glanced down at Abby. She was short—a few inches over five feet—and had olive skin, dark brown hair with red highlights, an engaging smile, and a voluptuous figure. Her face was plain, but her constant smile made her ordinary features seem unusually attractive. “That’s no good.” Abby lived across the East River in a one-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of a Queens walk-up. She had invited Jay to a small get-together a week after he had joined the firm to introduce him to several of her friends. With the window unit on the blink, her place would be a steam bath in this heat. “I’d be happy to come over and take a look at it,” he offered. “I’m no engineer, but my father taught me a thing or two about moving parts.”
    “I bet he did,” she teased, raising one eyebrow and giving Jay a sly, suggestive once-over before bursting into laughter.
    He eased into his chair, grinning. He and Abby had become good friends over the past month. She hadn’t been resentful at all about his joining the arbitrage desk from the outside as a more senior person than she. In fact, she had gone out of her way to make him feel comfortable. Unlike Bullock, who was still doing his best to make Jay’s first few weeks hellish.
    “Don’t worry about the air conditioner,” she said. “My father’s coming over tonight to try to fix it. If he can’t, he said, he’ll get me a new one. But it’s nice of you to be concerned.”
    “No problem.”
    “Oh!” Abby snapped her fingers and picked up a pink message slip. “I think you better talk to this guy. He’s called three times in the last ten minutes.”
    Jay took the slip from Abby. “Brian Kelly.” He read the name aloud. “Kelly works at Goldman Sachs. He brokers common stock to institutions. Oliver went on a rampage last night trying to reach Kelly.” Abby had taken the previous day off and hadn’t been around for the fireworks.
    “Why was Oliver trying so hard to get Kelly?”
    “It had to do with the Bates Corporation,” Jay explained.
    “Bates is the company that’s been trying to fight off a hostile takeover bid from that British conglomerate. Right?”
    “Yes,” Jay confirmed.