Free Final Option by Gini Hartzmark

Trade casts its long shadow down the canyon of office buildings that line LaSalle, Chicago’s version of Wall Street. From the top of its pyramid-shaped roof a bronze statue of Ceres, the Roman goddess of grain, presides impassively over the daily tumult of the futures markets while satellite dishes hidden behind her skirts beam commodity prices around the world.
    Since the early morning I’d been closeted in a smoky conference room off the trading floor with Barton Jr., Carl Savage, and Tim Hexter—who, if anything, : seemed even more flustered and at loose ends than he had the day before. We had summoned the Hexter Commodities floor traders in succession in order to orchestrate the liquidation of Bart Hexter’s massive positions. Later in the morning a reluctant Barton Jr. would address the employees of Hexter Commodities. He had also agreed to remain at the office the bulk of the trading day, making himself available for trading decisions.
    It was hoped that his physical presence at the office would send a strong signal of family continuity and commitment to the firm.
    Our business with the floor traders concluded, Barton stole a quiet moment to prepare his remarks. I slipped upstairs to the visitors’ gallery to watch the opening of the day’s trading in the soybean pit. In Chicago the trading pits are often seen as mythic places, but in reality they are quite plain. No matter what commodity is traded there, each pit is the same: eight-sided risers covered with black rubber meant to promote traction, muffle noise, and be easy on the feet.
    From my vantage point above the trading floor I could see the green-jacketed out-trade clerks, some who had been at work since four A.M., finishing with the computer printouts arrayed on folding tables adjacent to the bean pit. Every morning they anxiously check for their employers’ names on the daily list of out-trades—discrepancies between buyer and seller that represent mistakes made during the previous day’s trading that must be reconciled before the market opens. With the approach of the opening, exchange staff members hovered impatiently, waiting to clear the aisles.
    The soybean pit was already filled, though mostly with broker’s clerks, not much older than teenagers, who are paid to hold a favorite spot for a particular trader. Most days they spend their time doing crossword puzzles or playing hand-held video games, but today most had newspapers open to the business section where the lead article spelled out the story of Bart Hexter’s death.
    There is a strict dress code in the pits, but it has to do with information rather than aesthetics. Traders wear color-coded jackets, cut along the lines of a soda jerk’s, which correspond to the firm through which that trader clears his trades. For example, traders who clear through Merrill Lynch wear dark green; Dellsher, sky blue; and Hexter Commodities, black. Runners all wear gold. These messengers sprint between the phone clerks who receive buy and sell orders from the various trading firms upstairs and the traders in the pits who actually execute the trades.
    When the opening bell rang at 8:30 the noise hit me like a wall as the pit ignited into a swirl of motion. I Viewed from above it looked like a whirlpool of psychedelic, churning water as the bright-jacketed traders I gestured wildly in the air, arms up, voices raised. This morning’s opening seemed particularly intense, and I knew that to some extent the frenzy was attributable to Bart Hexter’s death.
    Doug Wirtman traded soybeans for Hexter Commodities. I spotted him in his customary place on the top step of the pit, a square mica badge emblazoned with his firm’s four-letter trading I.D.—BART—hung from the pocket of his black jacket. Wirtman was a handsome ' ex-jock who’d played two seasons in the World Professional Soccer League before changing over to the more serious competition of the bean pit. Nothing in Wirtman’s demeanor hinted of his