chapter 78
AT EIGHT THIRTY Monday morning, a full hour before the Gold Mine’s scheduled opening, Jake sat in his pickup truck across the street and down the block from the business. He looked through hunting binoculars to see if he could get a glimpse of Moon Pie. He wondered what had happened to cause there to be yellow police tape across the front door. He wasn’t sure what he would do if he saw Moon Pie. He actually didn’t know what the guy looked like but hoped he’d be able to pick him out. The police described him as fence-post thin, except he had a pronounced paunch. He had shoulder-length, stringy brown hair, and he shaved only once a week.
In the seat beside Jake, in an unzipped canvas case, was a new Ruger 9 mm semiautomatic pistol. Jake reached over and grabbed the weapon without pulling it from the case. It felt good in his hand and gave him a sense of assurance. Jake wanted to walk up to Moon Pie and settle things. He suspected that Moon Pie would be equally willing. Jake was tired of wondering and worrying. He was ready to move on. Jake had yet to hear from R.C. He wanted him along, but now he was going to have to go it alone.
Jake’s BlackBerry was blowing up with interoffice e-mails. The market was open, and his day was already getting crazy busy. He dreaded it. He hated talking to customers about domestic and foreign financial markets, the global recession, the disaster that was the European Union, and how the collapse of the euro was going to affect the value of the US dollar and their investments. He hated discussing how the Chinese yuan was being pushed by our own treasury secretary to become a reserve currency in order to stoke inflation in America. And he hated that his clients were never satisfied. They always thought he got them out of a stock either too soon or too late. They all thought they were the only ones missing out on some position or play that would make them wealthy or at least recover some of their portfolio losses. Clients always thought they were just getting the leftovers, the crumbs. They bitched about having to pay commissions on trades, whether it was bought or sold. They all had stories about out-of-town friends whose brokers were making them rich beyond measure. Jake was sick of it.
Jake just wanted to stick the barrel of his pistol in Moon Pie’s face and permanently end this game of cat and mouse.
He cranked the truck and slowly pulled away from the curb. On the radio, Mike and Mike were on ESPN, recapping the weekend’s college football games, which was a welcome distraction. Jake headed to his office for another day of the grind, although he had no intention of putting in a full day. I’ll come back here later, he thought, zipping the gun case shut, and then placing the pistol under his seat.