Black Fridays Read Online Free Page A

my back, the hot, green flush on my cheeks. I choked back the acid rising in my throat.
    David was still talking. “The firm has agreed to provide you with legal counsel, but only insofar as our interests coincide.”
    In other words, “Get a lawyer.”
    “Thank you. That won’t be necessary. I’ve already taken care of that.” My head was clearing. The angry knot in my stomach that had me drinking Pepto-Bismol for lunch every day was loosening. The hundred-pound anvils that had been sitting on each shoulder for the past three years metamorphosed into butterflies and flew away. This was far from over, and the ulcer- and angina-inducing symptoms would return many times over the next year, as the Feds threatened and my legal team negotiated, but at that one moment I felt the elation of finally being caught.
    “Jason, it’s been a good run. We have all benefited from your group’s performance. This is a tragedy. I’m sorry it has to end this way.”
    What was he saying? Of course everyone benefited. He had benefited even more than I, that being the reality of the Wall Street compensation pyramid. The chairman and CEO benefited. The bank had weathered the recent credit crisis by jettisoning the mortgage portfolio early, but it had been a close thing. Now they would have to restate earnings to the tune of half a billion dollars—the stock would take a hit. A big hit.
    “I just wish you had come to me with this, Jason. I am sure we could have worked something out. A quiet resignation with an acceptable severance package. The restatement of earnings could have been spread over the next few years. We all thought there were avenues we could have pursued. We were prepared to work with you.”
    They knew. They fucking knew! I was sure my usual stony expression was shot, but I managed not to gasp like a fifth grader finding out about sex for the first time.
    “How long?”
    “Almost since the beginning.” He shrugged and smiled. “It was a trying time here. It suited all of us to have one department that seemed to be doing well.”
    “I don’t know whether to shit or go blind.”
    He stood up. The meeting was over.
    “Everything we have discussed here is deniable, of course. I really am sorry, Jason. I enjoyed working with you.”
    I shook the proffered hand without thinking about it. I was shattered. I knew the poker warning: if you look around the table and can’t identify the mark, then you’re it.
    The Feds knew. They offered me a six-month sentence at a low-security country club with views of the Allegheny foothills if I agreed to give up all I knew about the “conspiracy.” I had nothing to give them. I went to Ray Brook for two years instead.
    The press figured it out. Floyd Norris at the
Times
kept hammering away that upper management had to have known what was going on. The
Journal
and the
Financial Times
followed suit. The pressure built.
    David was allowed to retire. They vested all of his deferred compensation and gave him a twenty-million-dollar check—in return for signing a stack of documents that prevented him from being able to testify about his years of working there. He and his second wife moved to the south of France. Last I heard, he was learning to windsurf.
    Just before they transferred me from Ray Brook to the downstate facility, I saw an item on the news that the chairman of Case Securities was stepping down to spend more time with his family. In a surprise move, the board elected not to name the CEO to take his place. His resignation was expected as soon as a new chairman was announced. Each of their severance packages was rumored to be enough to buy a small country.

MY FATHER DROPPED ME OFF on Seventy-second Street and handed me the apartment keys.
    “Oh, and don’t forget this.” He reached into the backseat and brought out my Valextra briefcase.
    I had left it at his apartment in Queens the last night before entering the system.
    The case contained the last remains of my previous