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Otherwise, the human race would have died out long ago, because who would be so egotistical that they would do this on purpose? "Oh, yeah, I can handle this." Sure you can, pal.
     
     
We walked out of that mall with Little Nicky looking like all the other suburban yuppie kids, Little Lord Fauntleroy, ready to inherit the world. You're gonna have to change your style, too, I told myself. Urban street rat chic is not going to cut it. As soon as we hit the highway, Nicky fell asleep clutching his knapsack. See, I thought, you're learning already. Wear his ass out first, then drive.
     
     
    * * *
I got off the highway when we hit the Maine state line. I was sick of it by then, it seemed pointless, speeding through the countryside in a big hurry, particularly in light of the fact that I didn't know where the hell we were going to begin with. There was a big sign, "Scenic Route, U.S. 1," so that's the way we went. For quite a while, "scenic" seemed to mean tourist traps, giant liquor stores, souvenir places, and outlet shops, but gradually they tapered off and we began to see more of the Maine shoreline, rocks and pine trees and wide wet mudflats that smelled strongly of salt and clam shit when the tide was out. We passed through a few small towns on the way and I looked carefully at the inhabitants, wondering how I was going to blend in up here. I didn't know anything about my heritage, but it was a pretty safe bet that my forebears did not come from Maine. These people looked rugged, but they were white, baby, white, with lots of red faces, yellow hair, and blue eyes.
     
     
    * * *
I called Buchanan from a pay phone outside a diner in Gardiner around ten the next morning. "What do you have?"
     
     
"I got something sweet, baby, I got a guy the SEC is after," he said. "Nice deal, clean and neat."
     
     
"How does the guy help me if the SEC is after him?"
     
     
"That's what makes this work," Buchanan said. "He's holding stock in a small pharmaceutical company. They're going to get FDA approval on a new boner drug."
     
     
"Say what?"
     
     
"A new boner drug. You suffer from limpus dickus, it makes you seventeen again."
     
     
"I thought these guys were trying to cure cancer."
     
     
"More money in hard-ons. Anyway, he can't hold the stock. He's got to sell before word of the approval gets out. The SEC thinks he uses inside information, which he does, but if he sells early, before the stock goes up, he can say, 'Hey, look at the bath I took,' and they'll back off."
     
     
"So how does this work?"
     
     
"He sells, you buy, sometime between now and three weeks from now, current market price. You got any trades in the past twelve months?"
     
     
"Yeah."
     
     
"How'd you do?"
     
     
"Don't ask."
     
     
"Better and better. They look at you, they got to figure you work on the monkey and the dartboard theory, you finally got one right. So you buy the stock from him, right, you put your cash in escrow with me. After the FDA approval becomes public, you ride it up and then dump it, you're nice and clean. He takes his end out of the cash you put up with me."
     
     
"How are you getting yours?"
     
     
"You're getting a free ride on this one, Mo. Once I know the name of the security, I'm jumping in on the open market."
     
     
"Serious?"
     
     
"I like this one, Mo. This guy is golden. Listen, you got a broker or do you make your trades on-line?"
     
     
"I do everything on-line."
     
     
"What's the total value of your account?" I told him. "Wow," he said. "You're not doing so bad."
     
     
"Job security," I said.
     
     
"Yeah, sure," he said. "Look, here's what I want you to do. Sell everything you're holding, and start messing around with some pharma stocks. Buy a bunch of Merck, hold it for a week, then sell it all and buy Abbott, or something like that. We want to establish a pattern of trades in the time we've got left until it's time to jump into this new stock. Can you do that?"
     
     
"Yeah, sure."
     
     
"How