I nodded at all of this, as though mentally jotting it down for later scrutiny.

‘The guy who designed this place,’ she said, ‘is even thinking of moving in himself.’

The vast lobby area had pink-veined marble columns supporting a gold-toned mosaic ceiling, but little in the way of furniture or art works. The elevator took us up to

the sixty-eighth floor in what felt like ten seconds, but must have been longer. The apartment she was showing me still had some work to be done on it, so I wasn’t to

mind the bare light bulbs and exposed wiring. ‘But …’ she turned to me and said in a whisper as she was putting the key in the door, ‘… check out the views…’

We stepped into an open, loft-style space, and although I was aware of various corridors going off in different directions, I was immediately drawn to the full-length

windows on the far side of this bare, white room. There was plastic sheeting on the floor, and as I walked across it, Alison following just behind me, the whole of

Manhattan rose dizzyingly up into view. Standing there at the window, I gaped out at the cluster of midtown skyscrapers directly ahead, at Central Park huddled up to

the left, at the financial district over to my right.

Seen here from an angle that had a dreamlike quality of the impossible to it, all of the city’s land-mark buildings were in place – but they appeared to be facing, even

somehow looking, in this direction.

I sensed Alison at my shoulder – smelled her perfume, heard the gentle swish of silk against silk as she moved.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘what do you think?’

‘It’s amazing,’ I said, and turned to look at her.

She was nodding in agreement, and smiling. Her eyes were a vivid green and glistened in a way that I hadn’t noticed before. In fact, Alison Botnick suddenly seemed

a lot younger than I had imagined her to be.

‘So, Mr Spinola,’ she said, holding my gaze, ‘do you mind if I ask you what line of work you are in?’

I hesitated, and then said, ‘Investment banking.’

She nodded.

‘I work for Carl Van Loon.’

‘I see. That must be interesting.’

‘It is.’

As she processed this information, maybe slotting me into some real estate client category, I glanced around at the room with its bare walls and incomplete grid of

ceiling panels, trying to imagine how it might look fully furnished, and lived in. I thought about the rest of the place, as well.

‘How many rooms are there?’ I asked.

‘Ten.’

I considered this for a moment – an apartment with ten rooms – but the scale of it defeated me. I was drawn irresistibly back to the window and gazed out again at

the city – rapt as before, taking it all in. It was a clear, sunny day in Manhattan and just standing there made me feel utterly exhilarated.

‘What’s the ask price?’

I had the impression she was only doing it for effect, but Alison consulted her notebook, flicking through several pages and humming in concentration. After a

moment, she said, casually, ‘Nine point five.’

I clicked my tongue and whistled.

She consulted another page in her notebook and then stepped a little over to the left, as though she were now positively lost in concentration.

I went back to looking out of the window. It was a lot of money, sure, but it wasn’t necessarily a prohibitive amount. If I continued trading at my current levels, and

managed to play Van Loon the right way, there was no reason why I shouldn’t be able to put some kind of a financial package together.

I glanced back at Alison and cleared my throat.

She turned around, and smiled politely.

Nine and a half million dollars.

There’d been a certain amount of wattage in the air between us, but apparently the mention of money had somehow defused this and for the next while we wandered

in silence through the other rooms of the apartment. The views and angles in each one were slightly different from those in the main room, but they were equally as

spectacular. There seemed to be light everywhere, and space, and as I passed through what would be the bathrooms and the kitchen, I had swirling visions in my head

of onyx, terracotta, mahogany, chrome – elegant living in a kaleidoscope of floating forms, parallel lines, designer curves …

At one point, I contrasted all of this with the cramped atmosphere and creaking floorboards of my one-bedroom apartment on Tenth Street and I immediately began

to feel light-headed, constricted in my breathing, a little panicky even.

‘Mr Spinola, are you all right?’

I was leaning against a doorway now, with one hand pressed against my chest.

‘Yeah, I’m fine … it’s just …’

‘What?’

I looked up, and around, to get my bearings … unsure that I hadn’t had another momentary blackout. I didn’t think I’d moved – didn’t remember moving – but I

couldn’t be 100 per cent certain that …

That what?

That from where I was standing, the angle wasn’t different …

‘Mr Spinola?’

‘I’m fine. I’m fine. I have to go now, though. I’m sorry.’

I started walking swiftly along the corridor towards the main entrance. With my back to her, I waved a hand in the air and said, ‘I’ll be in touch with your office. I’ll

phone. Thank you.’

I got out into the hallway and straight over to one of the elevator cars.

I was hoping, as the doors whispered closed, that she wouldn’t follow me, and she didn’t.

[ 16 ]

I WALKED OUT OF THE CELESTIAL and across the plaza towards Tenth Avenue, keenly aware of the colossal rectangular slab of bronzetinted glass shimmering in the sun

behind me. I was also aware of the possibility that Alison Botnick was still up on the sixty-eighth floor, and maybe even staring down at the plaza – which of course

made me feel like an insect, and more so with each step I took. I had to walk several blocks along Thirty-third Street, past the General Post Office and Madison

Square Garden, before finding a taxi. I never once looked back, and as I got settled into the cab I kept my head down. There was a copy of the New York Post lying

folded on the seat beside me. I picked it up and held it tightly in my lap.

I still wasn’t sure if anything had happened back there, but the merest hint of that clicking business starting up again absolutely terrified me. I sat still and waited,

gauging each flicker of perception, each breath, ready to isolate and assess anything out of the ordinary. A couple of minutes passed, and I seemed to be OK. I then

relaxed my grip on the newspaper, and by the time we were turning right on to Second Avenue, I had calmed down considerably.

I flipped open the Post and looked at the front page. The headline was FEDS PROBE REGULATORS. It was a story about goings-on at the New York State Athletic

Commission and was accompanied by extremely unflattering photos of two NYSAC officials. As usual in the Post, across the top of the front page, above the

masthead, there were three boxed headlines with page references for the articles inside. The middle one, white type on a red background, immediately caught my eye. It

said, MEX PAINTER’S WIFE IN BRUTAL ATTACK, page 2. I paused for a second, staring at the words, and was about to flick over to the story when I noticed the headline

beside it. This one – white on black – said, MYSTERY TRADER CLEANS UP, page 43. I fumbled with the paper, trying to get it open, and when I eventually got to the

article, which was in the business section, the first thing I saw was Mary Stern’s by-line.

My stomach started churning.

I couldn’t believe she’d gone ahead and written something about me, and especially after the way I’d spoken to her on the phone – but then maybe that was why.

The text of the article took up half a page and was accompanied by a large photo of the Lafayette trading room. There were Jay Zollo and the others, swivelled around

on their chairs, staring into the camera.

I started reading.

Something unusual has been going on in one of the day-trading houses down on Broad Street. In a room with fifty terminals and as many baseball caps, guerrilla marketmakers shave and scalp their way

to tiny profit margins – an eighth of a point here, a sixteenth of a point there. It’s a hard graft at Lafayette Trading and the atmosphere is undeniably tense.

I was named in the second paragraph.

But last week all of that changed as new kid on the block, Eddie Spinola, walked in off the street, opened an account and launched straight into an aggressive short-selling spree that left seasoned traders

in the Lafayette pit gasping for breath – and reaching for their keyboards, as they followed his leads and swept up profits unheard of in the day-trading world. But get this – undisputed King Rat by the

end of his first week, mystery trader Eddie Spinola has since gone AWOL …

I couldn’t believe it. I skimmed the rest of the paragraph.

refuses to speak … cagey with fellow-traders … evasive … elusive … hasn’t been seen for days …

The article went on to speculate about who I was and what I might be up to, and included quotes from, among others, a baffled Jay Zollo. A sidebar gave details of

trades I’d made and of how various Lafayette regulars had benefited – one guy making enough for a down-payment on an apartment, another booking himself in for

some long overdue dental surgery, a third catching up on alimony arrears.

It was a strange feeling, being written about like this, seeing my name in print, in a newspaper, especially in the business section of a newspaper. It was even stranger

that it should be in the business section of the New York Post.

I looked out at the traffic on Second Avenue.

I didn’t know what any of this meant – in terms of my privacy, or of my relationship with Van Loon, or of anything – but there was one thing I was sure of: I didn’t

like it.

*

The cab pulled up at my building on Tenth Street. I was so distracted by the Post article that as I paid the driver and got out, I didn’t notice the small group of what I

would soon realize were photographers and reporters gathered on the sidewalk. They didn’t know me, didn’t know what I looked like, presumably only knew where I

lived – but when I got out of the cab and stood there, staring at them in disbelief, it must have been obvious who I was. There was a brief moment of calm before the

penny dropped, a two-second delay at most, and then it was Eddie! Eddie! Here! Here! Click! Whirr! Click! I put my head down, got my key out and surged

forward. When are you going back to Lafayette, Eddie? Look this way, Eddie! What’s your secret, Eddie? I managed to get inside the door and to slam it closed

behind me. I rushed upstairs into my apartment and went straight over to the window. They were still down there, about five of them, clustered around the door of the

building. Was this a result of the story in the Post? Everyone wanting to know about the guy who’d beaten the markets? The mystery trader? Well if that was news, I

thought, it was just as well no one realized I was the Thomas Cole the police were so anxious to interview in connection with the Donatella Alvarez situation.

I turned back in towards the room.

The red light was flashing on my answering machine. I walked over to it, wearily, and pressed the ‘play’ button.

Seven messages.

I sat on the edge of the couch and listened. Jay Zollo, pleading with me to get in touch with him again. My father, puzzled, wanting to know if I’d seen that thing in the

paper. Gennady, pissed, declaring that if I was yanking his chain he’d cut my fucking head off, and with a bread knife. Artie Meltzer, all pally, inviting me out to lunch.

Mary Stern, telling me it’d be so much easier if I would just talk to her. A recruitment company, offering me an executive position in a major brokerage house.

Someone from David Letterman’s office – a booking agent – saying if I agreed I could be on the show tonight.

I flopped back on to the couch and stared up at the ceiling. I had to stay calm. I certainly hadn’t wanted any of this attention or pressure, but if I was going to come

through it in one piece, I really needed to keep my wits about me. I rolled off the couch, got up and went into the bedroom to lie down properly. Maybe if I could just

sleep for part of the afternoon, for an hour or two, I might be able to think a bit more clearly. But the moment I lay down on the bed and stretched out I knew I wasn’t

going to be able to do it. I was wide awake and my mind was racing.

I got up again and went into the living-room. I paced back and forth for a while – from the desk to the phone, from the phone to the desk. Then I went into the

kitchen. Then out again. Then into the bathroom, then out again to the living-room. Then over to the window. Then back again. But that was it, there was nowhere else

to go – just these three rooms. Standing near my desk, I surveyed the apartment and tried to imagine what the place would be like with ten rooms, and high ceilings, and

bare white walls. But I couldn’t do it, not without getting dizzy. Besides, that was somewhere else – the sixty-eighth floor of the Celestial – and I was here now, in my

apartment …

I stepped back from the desk, a little unsteadily, and leant against the bookshelves behind me. I felt queasy all of a sudden, and light-headed.

I closed my eyes.

After a moment, I found myself floating – moving along an empty, brightly lit corridor. Sound was distant and increasingly muffled. The forward motion seemed to

continue for ages, the pace slow and dreamy. But then I was gliding around a broad curve, moving into and across a room, towards a wide, full-length window. I didn’t

stop at the window, but floated on – arms outstretched – through the window and out above the vast microchip of the city, while behind me, after a brief but

inexplicable delay, the huge plate of bronzetinted glass shattered deafeningly into a million pieces …

I opened my eyes – and jolted backwards, recoiling in fright from the unexpected aerial view I was now getting of the sidewalk down on Tenth Street, of the trash

cans and parked cars and photographers’ heads milling around like bacteria in a lab dish. I pulled myself in from the window ledge, struggling to keep my balance, and

slumped down on to the floor. Then, taking deep breaths and rubbing the top of my head – which I had banged against the upper section of the window – I stared over

in amazement at where I had been a moment before … and still should have been …

I got up slowly and walked back across the room towards the bookshelves, closely observing each step. I reached out to touch things as I passed them, to reassure

myself – the side of the couch, the table, the desk. I looked back at where I had come from, and couldn’t believe it. It didn’t seem real that I had been leaning out of

that window, and leaning out so far …

With my heart still thumping, I went into the bathroom. If this thing was going to start up again, and develop, I had to find some way to stop it. I opened the medicine

cabinet above the washbasin and quickly searched through all the bottles and packets and sealed containers, the accumulated toiletries, shaving things, soap products,

non-prescription painkillers. I found a bottle of cough syrup I’d bought the previous winter but had never used. I scanned the label and saw that it contained codeine. I

opened the cap, pausing for a second as I glanced at myself in the mirror, and then started chugging the stuff down. It was horrible, sickly and viscous, and I gagged

between swallows, but at least I knew that whatever synaptic short-circuiting in my brain was causing these blackouts, the codeine would slow me down and make me

drowsy, and probably sufficiently drowsy to keep me here, passed out on the couch or on the floor – I didn’t mind which, just so long as I wasn’t outside somewhere in

the city, out and about and on the loose …