“So find the books, but first—” Jake considered how much to say in front of Charlie. “First we need to get the statement material ready. Between new clients and moving, we’re gonna be squeezed.”
Gita-Rae nodded, stealing a glance at Charlie before responding. “It’s getting to be more than a one-woman job.”
“What about your assistant? Nanci with the i?”
“She types what I give her. It’s not like she has a brain.”
“So you hired someone brainless?”
“I hired a terrific typist who’s smart enough to do what I tell her and dumb enough to not care what she does. Money’s all she wants.”
Everything had a price tag, including blindness. People like Nanci, Gita-Rae, and Charlie? Jake guaranteed they’d never leave. Nobody would pay them like he did.
“Can Charlie help?” Jake asked.
Charlie stepped forward. “Whatever you need, boss.”
“We’re gonna need more time from Vic,” Gita-Rae said. “I can’t keep up with pricing everything.”
“I thought Vic helped you already.” Jake cocked his head. “You been bullshitting me?”
Her answer—a deep cigarette laugh—irritated him.
“What? I’m funny?”
“Boss, I wouldn’t know where to start if I wanted to bullshit you. I’m just happy if I can keep in check. I just didn’t want to overstep with Vic. Give him too much Club work.” She glanced over at Charlie. “I keep everything on a need-to-know basis, just like you want.”
“Send him to me,” Jake said. “We’ll talk.”
He left without another word. God bless Gita-Rae. She knew him. His business motto contained one simple sentence: “No one knows everything.”
Except him. And only one balance of power worked: him on top.
How long since he had really made any buy for the Club? Three months? Four? Soon every penny would be in order, but at the moment, his bills devoured him, and he needed every new client’s money just to keep afloat. The brokerage did well, but not well enough that he caught up with all the bills. Their gorgeous house sucked out more money every day. Georgia forgot to mention how sea breezes brought wood rot along with the scent of salt, or how many people it took to landscape a spread like theirs. The cars he needed to impress. The memberships.
Only fresh client money could feed the gaping maws of his business and life, but fuck it—rules didn’t grow an empire. Who else but Jake Pierce kept everyone’s portfolio going during three years of a bear market? Word of mouth spread plenty when the whispers said that the Club’s returns held when the Dow fell 36 percent. But Jake woke at two, three, four in the morning, adding numbers, smacked by the gargantuan figure he’d need to get everything straight and to buy the stocks and bonds listed as already bought.
He kept a secret ledger—written in code—with every stock trade he purported to have made, numbers that Gita-Rae gave him. As the numbers added up, the mountain of money necessary for client payouts became higher.
His glee at the thought of arranging books on his shelves dissipated as he opened his office door. After placing the pile on his desk, he reached in his pocket for the ever-present Rolaids to calm his sour jitters. Then he rummaged in the back of the top drawer for a pack of M&M’s.
He made sure the brokerage stayed 100 percent on the level. The feds only kept watch on that end of the business. The Club, which he ran as a private group, might as well use Monopoly money as far as how much they looked. Not that it mattered. In just a month or two, everything would be on the level. The market would work for him. What went down must come up. As long as he tracked it, he’d be okay. Reality would match his numbers. At that point he could fold the Club.
This whole setup was temporary. As soon as Jake had enough stashed away to make sure his little girl—and the son he knew would follow—never wanted for anything, and he could look out for his parents, get them out of that awful apartment and buy them a decent car, and ensure that Phoebe could stay home and take care of the kids just like her mother did, then he’d be satisfied. He’d get more clients while he also made killer buys in the market. Solomon could help figure out what was hot.
He had to keep his reputation—the greatest juggler, the perfect stock picker—intact.
Jake closed his eyes and pictured the Club straightened out with all the books in order. The imagined perfection calmed his heart. All he needed was a little time and some rest.
? ? ?
That night, he tiptoed into his baby girl’s room to make sure she was breathing. He guessed all parents did that once in a while, even when their baby was almost two—like Katie. They always seemed younger when they slept.
He’d look at her tiny back moving up and down and feel his heart crack down the middle. Nobody ever prepared him for the sucker punch of love you felt every time you saw your kid sleeping. Sometimes she’d wake. When she did, she never cried—she smiled and lifted her arms to him. He’d swing her up easy as peeling a banana. She’d hold on like a koala, as though he were her world.
Sometimes, like tonight, he absolutely needed to hold Katie, even knowing that Phoebe would have his head for rousing her. He slipped his hands under her, her body warm under the Dr. Denton footed sleeper. Phoebe and Deb called them footies, and, truly, there was nothing in this world better than the sight of his Katie and her cousin Charlotte in their footies, running down the long hallway and out to the deck to stare at the ocean water lapping in the Long Island Sound. At that moment, it felt as though Jake had personally invented the sea for his family and then conjured up the moon to make shadows dance on the black water.
Katie settled her head into the crook of his neck, her soft curls tickling his nose. He carried her into the bedroom, where Phoebe slept, and laid his daughter next to his wife. The two of them found each other like kittens as they slept, Phoebe curling around Katie.
Jake washed up and put on his pajamas. He climbed in, and between him and Phoebe, they made a Katie sandwich. His wife opened her crystalline blue eyes and, after shaking her head in the tradition of wives everywhere—Oh, Jake—she reached over Katie and stroked his arm.
“She’s beautiful, right?” Jake kissed the top of Katie’s head, inhaling her milky smell, feeling as though he’d fight an army to protect her. “I mean, all babies are cute, I guess, but she’s extraordinary.”
“All parents think that about their kids,” Phoebe whispered. “Especially when they’re asleep.” She ran a finger over Katie’s curls and then took Jake’s hand. “But yes, she’s very special.”
“My girls,” he said. “My two extraordinary girls.”
CHAPTER 11
Phoebe
August 1970
“Play!” Katie’s piercing voice drilled into Phoebe. “Play now!”