The Patriots' Club

18

Bolden shoved his way past the stunned onlookers into the hall. Past Schiff, past Althea, past the other decent, familiar faces he’d worked with for the past six years. No one said a word. No one tried to stop him. The silence lasted five seconds, before a woman screamed.

Bolden started to run. To his left, glassed-in offices like his own ran to the corner of the building. To the right, the floor was divided into cramped two-person work areas that housed the firm’s analysts and associates. Between each was a small nook filled with filing cabinets, copying machines, and, occasionally, a space for an executive secretary. The philosophy was to force employees at all levels out of their offices and into common spaces, where they could work on projects together. Cross-pollination, they called it.

Everyone on this side of the floor had heard the gunshot. Those who hadn’t gathered outside Bolden’s office were either standing or cowering by their desks. Every other person had a phone to their cheek. They knew the drill. Gunshot. Call 911. One more red-blooded American gone postal.

A few came after him, timidly at first. Seeing the guards in pursuit, several more joined the fray. Bolden could feel rather than see them. He wasn’t taking time to look.

Damn you, Sol, he cursed silently. You had no business acting the hero. What were you thinking getting between me and a man with a gun?

Turning a corner, he ran down the corridor that bisected the forty-second floor. The hallway was dimly lit. He passed the coatroom, the snack area with its array of upscale vending machines, the shoeshine closet, and finally, the washrooms. Whatever else happened, he knew that he would never work at Harrington Weiss again. He hadn’t shot Weiss, but it didn’t matter. Just like it didn’t matter that he’d never laid a hand on Diana Chambers. The fact that Weiss was killed in his office was enough. Bolden was tainted.

Ahead, twin white doors separated the work area from the public area. He passed through them and emerged into the firm’s reception area.

By now security had been notified and the elevators had been taken out of service. Every redcoat in the building would be waiting for him downstairs. An interior flight of stairs curved in a graceful spiral down to forty-one-the trading floor and the directors’ fitness room. From forty-one, the stairs descended one more flight to the executive dining area. Harrington Weiss took up ten floors in all. Sol Weiss and the top brass were on forty-three. You could access the floor only by an internal elevator on forty-one and forty-two. From the lobby, you needed the proper key.

Bolden bounded down the stairs three at a time. Hitting forty-one, he bumped into two traders from the derivatives desk. “Sol’s been shot!” he said breathlessly. “Get up there. He needs help.”

The two men ran up the stairs and Bolden could hear shouts of confusion as they collided with his posse.

Forty-one was a universe unto itself. The trading floor was an unboundaried work area spanning the width of the building. Desks ran in parallel lines like yardage markers on a football field. Corps of traders sat, stood, argued, bantered, joked, and cajoled, but never loitered. No one ventured out of sight of their trading screens and their telephones. It was just after eight, so added to this mix was a wandering band of vendors peddling breakfast burritos, energy bars, bagels, lox, fruit, and plenty of Red Bull and diet Coke.

Bolden dived into the throng, running with his head down, his shoulders hunched. A few of his friends laughed at him, others pointed. Most paid him no attention whatsoever. They’d seen stranger things in their time.

The trading floor was organized according to instruments traded. Skirting the edge of the floor, he passed the desks for U.S. stocks, foreign stocks, then currencies. Bonds were divided up among corporates, convertibles, or “converts,” and municipals, or “munis.” Spotting Bolden, several men called out to him, but Bolden didn’t answer. An old saw said that if a guy hadn’t found a living trading bonds, he’d be driving a truck on the Jersey Turnpike. From the foul language shouted at Bolden, you’d think it still held true. In fact, ninety percent of the men and women on the floor held MBAs from Ivy League schools.

Bolden ran past the derivatives desk, where no one paid him any heed at all. The derivatives team was made up of the firm’s quant jocks and rocket scientists. MBAs weren’t the norm, but PhDs in quantum physics and pure mathematics. Human life-forms didn’t register for these guys. Just numbers. Most of them were Indian, Chinese, or Russian. So many, in fact, that their patch of the woods had been dubbed the UN.

The good thing about trading was that the hours were civilized. You started at seven and went home at five. The bad thing was that you started at seven and went home at five without leaving the trading floor. Lunches outside the building were a rarity. Many a trader had passed nearly every daylight hour of a thirty-year career walking the same ten-by-ten square of carpeting. Bolden preferred his fourteen-hour days, weekly plane travel to visit target companies, and twice-yearly boondoggles with clients to St. Andrews, the island of Nevis, or helicopter skiing in the Bugaboos. That life was gone, he reminded himself.

Glassed-in offices reserved for department heads lined the interior wall. To a man, the executives were engaged on the phone or in meetings. Just then, he spotted Andy O’Connell, who ran converts, dropping his phone and rushing out of his office. O’Connell stood in the center of the corridor, waving his arms as if to distract a charging bull. “I’ve got him,” he shouted, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. Bolden lowered his shoulders and straight-armed the slight trader. O’Connell tumbled to the carpet.

News of Sol Weiss’s murder had hit the floor like a tidal wave. One second, no one knew a thing. The next, a wild silence leveled the place, everyone sharing shocked looks, whispering, holding back tears while reaching for their phones to confirm it was true.

Bolden wasn’t sure where he was going, only that running was preferable to stopping. Stopping meant getting caught. And getting caught was not an option for an innocent man. He needed distance. Distance and time.

“Thomas!” It was Mickey Schiff. The man had a voice like a bullhorn. He stood back a ways, by the corridor leading to the elevators. He placed his hands on his hips. “Come now, Tom. Don’t run!” The stance said it all. The elevators were blocked off. The entrances to and from the building secure.

Bolden turned long enough to meet Schiff’s eyes and read the anger painted in them. Ahead, a wood-paneled wall partitioned the floor. The directors’ gymnasium sat behind it. He followed the wall to the glass doors that led to the gym. Inside, two young women seated at the reception desk looked at him in surprise.

“Sir, may I help you? Please, sir… you can’t…”

Bolden skirted the desk and found himself in the main exercise area. For all the talk about “cross-pollination,” there were strict rules about mixing with the proles. A row of Lifecycles occupied one half of the room, parked next to the floor-to-ceiling window. In case the view toward Battery Park and the Statue of Liberty wasn’t inspiring enough, each bike had a television. Every TV was on and tuned to CNBC or Bloomberg Television.

Running machines occupied the left-hand side of the room. Treadmill after treadmill after treadmill at ten grand a pop, and not a soul to be found. He ran to the end of the floor. A second room housed a fully equipped weight room. It, too, was empty. He slowed to check for an exit, then moved down the corridor. He negotiated the locker room, steam room, checked inside two massage rooms. A clock on the wall read 9:05.

“Sir, please…”

He turned to face one of the attendants. “Is there a stairwell?” he asked, hands on his knees, fighting for breath. “I need to get downstairs.”

“Yes, of course.” She pointed to an unmarked white door a few feet away. “But where are you going?”

Bolden opened the door and ran down the stairs. A dim light burned overhead. The staircase descended one flight before coming to a dead end. Bolden emerged into the executive kitchen.

Like any self-respecting bank, HW maintained its own kitchen. Or two kitchens, to be exact. There was a cafeteria on thirty-eight, and the dining room on forty that served lunch for directors and above, and catered formal gatherings. Smaller, more intimate rooms existed on forty-three, for those occasions when secrecy was of the utmost importance.

A few chefs were unpacking the morning’s deliveries. Otherwise, the place was empty. Settling to a brisk walk, Bolden made his way through the stainless-steel counters, searching for a service entrance. He’d never seen a chef outside the kitchen, so he knew that they must have their own entry. He checked the pantry, then the meat locker. He came to a sliding door built into the wall. He pushed it open to reveal a dumbwaiter. The space was tight, but he might fit inside. He leaned his weight on it and the tray dipped perilously. He stepped back and looked to either side of him. A stainless-steel door opened to the garbage chute. He looked inside. It was a long way down and pitch black.

And then he saw it. Across the room was a fire alarm, a red metal box with a white T-pull.

Since 9/11, the firm had practiced evacuating the building twice a year. Every floor had its assigned fire marshal. When the alarm was activated (silently), everyone knew to gather in lines at the stairwells and calmly leave the building. Once downstairs, each floor would make their way to a preordained meeting point one block from the building. Roll was called, and when all floors were accounted for, the firm trooped back into the building. No one joked. No one complained. Fire alarms were serious business.

“Danny, search the area. Hey, chef, you seen anyone come through here? You did? Where’d he go? Thank you.”

Bolden heard the voices echoing inside the kitchen. His eyes darted from the alarm to the entry. Dashing across the room, he pulled the alarm. Immediately, water sprayed from the overhead nozzles. A siren buzzed and the wall-mounted strobes began to flash. Bolden rushed back to his spot. Grabbing a stack of plates, he threw them into the dumbwaiter, then pressed the lift button. He stepped to the left, pulled open the garbage chute, and climbed inside. The door slammed shut behind him. The chute was four feet by three, stamped from reinforced aluminum. Like a climber negotiating a couloir, he wedged his feet against opposite walls. Every few seconds, he slipped. An inch. Two inches. The darkness was total. The chute might drop to the basement.

“Security says the alarm was pulled in the kitchen.” It was Schiff again, and closer. “Fan out, gentlemen.”

Footsteps echoed above Bolden’s head. His hands were slippery with sweat and exertion. He tensed his muscles, but pushing too hard was as bad as not pushing hard enough. He slipped again.

“Mr. Schiff, the dumbwaiter’s going up.”

“Say again?”

“Bolden’s in the dumbwaiter. Goes to forty-three, that’s it.”

Schiff shouted for his men to go to forty-three.

Bolden held his breath. He waited a minute, then inched his way up. His right shoe caught and came loose. He struggled to hold it, but a moment later, it tumbled into the darkness. Reflexively, he jammed his foot against the wall, but the sock was nearly worn through.

Bolden felt himself going. Inch by inch. Falling. In desperation, he reached for the sill of the entry. His fingers grasped only air. He dropped in stages, four inches, six, twelve, gathering speed. He pressed his palms to the wall, but his palms bounced off. Suddenly, he was in free fall, his stomach pressed high in his chest. A moment later, his feet hit something soft. He landed in a pile of rancid garbage. Yesterday’s meals. He kicked at all four walls. A door opened and he stepped into the custodian’s chambers.

Thirty-nine was not officially a floor. No elevator stopped there. It was a floor between floors, a technical work space crammed with over three thousand miles of cable and wire from the trading floor, servers, mainframes, Liebert air conditioners to keep the firm’s IT infrastructure operating at a perfect sixty-four degrees, and most important, an uninterruptible power supply.

He looked around the cramped foyer, walls on two sides. A service elevator faced him.

Bolden waited two minutes before pressing the call button.

Over a thousand people crammed the lobby and the promenade that surrounded the building. Bolden exited the freight elevator and walked into the milling masses. He let the crowd dictate his pace, never hurrying, never pushing, content to keep his head lowered and let the flow carry him. Nearby, there was a commotion. One of the downstairs security guards pushed past him, then abruptly stopped and took a step back.

“You Thomas Bolden?”

“No,” said Bolden. “Jack Bradley.”

The guard stared at him a second longer. Bolden was just another white face. “All right, Mr. Bradley,” he said. “You go ahead, sir.”

A minute later, Bolden passed through the massive glass doors.

The temperature had dropped further. The air crackled with cold. The day was gray and frigid.